Eva's journal

During Double Wars Jonas Evertsson/Lord Edricus filius Offaeus took this photo of Mistress Helwig Ulfsdotter and all her apprentices, her former apprentices, now mistresses themselves, and their apprentices - the "grandchildren"





Mistress Helwig is the woman in the middle, she is my mistress, to the right of her are my "siblings", her other apprentices: the king and queen of Drachenwald, William and Isabetta, and viscountess Filippa. To the left of Helwig are first Mistress Tece de Kaxtone, the newest of the Laurels, and former apprentice to the woman next to her: Mistress Lia de Thornegge , Mistrsss Helwig's first apprentice. Lady Silva standing on the far left is Lia's apprentice. Sitting down it's me, and duchess Agnes Odygd, who just had become Mistress Tece's first apprentice.

Family!

Otherwise I have been very busy since I got home from Double Wars. Today I went to the hospital because of the research project about psoriatic arthritis. It took a couple of hours, but I also got a referral about the weird lump on the right side of my abdomen, which probably is a hernia, after when they had to cut open my belly three and a half years ago, a referral concerning the bunion on my left foot which makes it hard to find shoes, and an appointment to discuss the possiblity to start getting remicade injections in the autumn.
And I now weigh 64 kilos on the official scales, which means that I've lost 34 kilos since christmas.

Extremely efficient day.

In the evening we had taco dinner with my neighbour Anna and her son, and then I started sketching and painting on the collapsable chests I had intended to make for Double Wars, but didn't have the time to work on.

Tomorrow I'm taking Maja and her best friend to a medieval market som 40 kilometres north of Gothenburg. By tram, train and bus. Neighbour Anna and her son are also coming along.

 I'm back from Double Wars and I had a wonderful time. We came home last night and since then we have been busy unpacking, mending torn clothes, etc, so Ihaven't got the energy to write about it.  I have, however, posted lots of photos over at my costuming blog, here.

When unpacking I also went through some old clothes and tried them on. This one is from 1998.

 I survived the 11,5 hours long work day with the excursion with the students  at our "Viking and medieval Scandinavia" course on Wednesday. I have graded tests, made new tests, done the final correction on an article, given three lectures and I'm having another one tomorrow.

And I have packed all my stuff, and everything needed for the pavilion, and this evening Johan came and picked up .. so soon, soon I can go to Double Wars and relax. Only "the Soviet state up to c 1950" and all the packing for Rickard and Maja left to do. I even painted a banner for Maja today.

Of course, I haven't made my class notes for my class on "Cotton in medieval Europe" that I'm giving at Double Wars on Thursday, but I can always finish those at the site.

So, I'm happy, but stressed enough to be rather hyper too.

 Today I'm going to the Swedish History conference, which is held every three years at different universities. This year it's in Sundsvall, which from my southwestern perspective is far north, but which actually just at the middle of Sweden geographically. Unlike here it's still winter there however, and that is something I don't look forward to.

I'm flying instead of taking the train because I had two lectures yesterday and there was no way that I could get there in time (between 8 and 13 hours train trip depending on when you go). Flying is really bad for the environment so I feel bad about that - but I also love the actual flying. And that means that I'm free to do whatever I want this morning. Or, there is work that I should do, but I'll do some of it on the plane and spend this morning relaxing a little instead. And some crafting, obviously.

I will get there too late to go to the reception mingle, but I will have a much better evening: People of the shire of Gyllengran will come ever for tea and crafting. I'm staying in a guest flat which belongs to the co-op where Hillevi, a woman from there, lives, so we will have a nice place to hang in.

My presentations (I have two) are in the two first sessions on Thursday morning, which is a little stressful - but on the other hand means that by lunch time I have done all my duties and can just relax and have fun.

Thursday evening is the conference dinner and I am going to wear my dotted wrap dress. Luckily it still looks good on me, even if I'm thinner now than I was when I took that photo (= less cleavage, not necessarily a bad thing).

And Friday afternoon I am going home rather early, because it's Maja's birthday. I will have a teenager again.

My work on Valeria's Eleonora di Toledo gown procedes slowly, but steadily. It does take time to stitch around all the edges of that trim. Thank the Gods that there are so many Drizzt Do'Urden audio books :)



Yesterday the brocade and lining for mine and baron Måns' new outfits finally arrived too.
( Behind cut )

The plan is to finish these for Double Wars, in the end of May. However, I have plenty of stuff to do before that, so we'll see. Maybe Valeria's will be finished then too, though it isn't much of  a camping outfit.

I re-made it! I'd better not get that weight back again now :)

The lighting is wonky, since it's dark both outside and inside now.

Since I don't like taking up my cell phone in public during events I mostly have posed photos. Of course I also sat in front at court and at the high table so it would have been absolutely impossible. I'm sure that there will plenty of good photos that I can direct you to later.

So most of the photos are of Åbo/Turku castle and it's collections, and of nature. But there are a few posed ones of me.

The first leg of the trip was train to Lidköping, some 130 kilometres north of Gothenburg, leaving at 1 pm on Wednesday. There my friend Vanna picked me up and we went to Karlsborg 100 kilometres roughly to the east, to pick up another friend: Jovi. From there qwe proceeded to Stockholm, more precisely the beautiful island of Ekerö, about 315 kilometres to the North and East. The roads were bad due to heavy snow fall and we weren't there until maybe 22 pm. There we stayed with another friend, Annika, over night, and until half past five in the evening on Thursday when we got into her car and went in to Stockholm to the ferry to Åbo/Turku which left at eight. It was very cold, around -15 C/5 F and a rather strong wind. It was also rather cold in the house where we slept, around 13 C/55 F, but with a woollen blanket and a woollen cloak on top of the quilt I slept well.
And it was stunningly beautiful.



The ferry takes about 10 hours and most of that (though not enough of course) was spent sleeping. There were lots of us going to the event on the boat and much merriment was had, as well as last minute sewing ;)

Since we arrived in Åbo/Turku before dawn we couldn't go directly to the site, so after breakfast at a hotel people set out to look at things - in my case I went to the castle with my friends Gudrun and Leif.
I hadn't been in Finland since 1979, and then I didn't see the castle, so I felt that it was a must. There are lots of stairs, so it's not for the faint of either heart or body.
It was also -22 C/-9 F and windy.



For more photos, including 16th century jewellery/accessories check this blog post.

After the castle people had a late lunch and then we went to the site in Ahtela, which is a kind of scouting camp in the forest in Sauvo at the coast. It was snowy, but much warmer then - just below zero /32F.

When we were there there was a light dinner (soup I think) and then at 9 p.m court. I wore my mi-parti italian wool gown and to my joy realized that I need a new hole in my apprentice belt! I also had my gold striped veil.



I went to bed early, because all landed nobility were to be at the Royal Sauna at 8 a.m on Saturday morning. But that will have to be told tomorrow, for now I must go to bed.

Today I'm starting two days of travelling to get to Drachenwald's Twelfth Night Coronation in Finland. I have never been to a coronation befire and I hope that it will be lots of fun. I think it will, lots of my dearest SCA friends are there and the peopel gettign crowned are my friends William and Isabetta, who I like very much; Isabetta and I are "sisters", in that we are both apprentices to Mistress helwig. The trip doesn't really take tow days, more like 18 hours, but on the way tehre we will stop for a night at another friend's place, picking her up. This is partly a safety measure, since weather can make it hard to travel these days and we don't want to miss the ferry from Stockholm to Finland. The ferry will be lots of fun since most of the Nordmark peopel are travelling in the same ferry.
On Sunday we leave way before dawn and hopefully I will be back in Gothenburg around midnight. That depends on if I make the last train from the place where my driver, duchess Vanna, lives. Otherwise I'll have to stay over at her place and then she has to drive me to the nearest town where I can take a bus at 7.10, change to a train and then arrive in Gothenburg at 9.30. Which means that I will have to drag my luggage with me to the hospital where I have an appointment with the weight loss nurse at ten. I really hope that I will get home on Sunday night.

Or, I can take the train from Stockholm, which seems more and more like the only solution the more I think of it.

Anyway, that's something that will have to be solved soon-ish, since I'm leaving in less than two hours. I will bring a book and craft projects. But first I have to go and get some diet soda and herbal tea to have while travelling.

Lord Edricus, who's a very good photographer, took photos at Festivalo de Caderas. They're on Flickr, and among other things you can see the apprentice ceremony of two Laurels taking apprentices (I am one of the apprentices). There are also photos of yours truly giving out awards, etc. The album is here.

Last Thursday I took the tram to another part of town to get mroe plywood, and now both boxes are finished:



( More photos )

On Sunday Rickard, Maja and I went to Gotvik's fighter practice before taking a walk through Gothenburg's biggest parking, catching pokémon. It was a glorius day and the trees and the leaves made me all giddy with their beauty.
The reason for the trip was, however, to deliver my 40-years present to Daniel, the baron: the pair of ermine patterned hand sewn linen braies:

Here modeled by Rickard. Info and documetnation can be found in my other blog.