Eva's journal

 Well. Crown Tourney is over, and luckily I didn't become queen. I don't know my fighter well enough for that to be a god idea, even if it had been fun to win. But with some other person, someone I know well.

I was, as my friend Mistress Lia said: bouncy. I drank too much, hugged too many people, told too many people that I love them and generally had a very good time. Though I wonder how this old, hard-partying Eva came back from the (almost) dead.

Now my body, and my feet especially, are killing me, and it was hard to give two lectures yesterday.

I got very few photos of my nw gown being worn, but here are three:

I still ahve trouble with my arthritis, but now a more "normal" genreal pain, rather than swollen joints (except the bones and tendons in my left foot). On Monday I will start working again, but I have started a little today with grading. I am so behind at work so it is less stressful to have some of that done. Actually I probably ought to be off work for another week, but that would make things very,very complicated with a few of the courses that I teach.

I can sew and read and I can take walks, but I have a hard time focusing on intellectual work and lecture planning because of pain.

Yesterday I had another SCA sewing meeting at home and it was really nice, even if there was a short while when I thought that some people were triggering each other into complaining about people in the SCA, so I tried to steer the conversation into a more constructive discussion about feelings, and I think that I was successful.

I also helped Mattias to cut out a red woollen surcoat and even did some sewing myself. I am reworking a gown that I made for Visby medieval week 1999 - my 15th century Visby :) 
 ( Photo of the folded gown, and of Kenya the cat )


I might wear it on St. Egon's Feast next weekend. I may even wear a mi-parti Gothic fitted dress from velvet that I made in 1998 for court, depending on if I have the time/inclination to fix the sleeves.

But I have also finished most of my new Saxon court gown, which I probably will wear at Spring Crown in three weeks time. This is how it looks without sleeves or brustfleck.




The shopping: I also got up early-ish and took trams to another part of town to be there when a certain second hand market opened. Because just before I went to bed I saw that they had posted this chair on their facebook page, and I didn't want to miss it. Sicne it's foldable I could also take it with me on the tram home, but it took its toll on my sick body. Still worth it though.

As you probably know I use my blogger-blog as a sort of web site. Because it was too much work to update my old web site. And lately I have been busy, endign up with pages for my:

a) late 18th century open robe

b) somewhat insane Italian 1330s outfit from striped brocade

c) brand new summer working outfit from 1370s Italy. With short sleeves!

d) Italian 16th century sottana from 2008-2009

c) mi-parti early 14th century Italian brocade gown.

I may even have a go at another "backlog" costume page today, we'll see.

I have , however, given 7 two hour long lectures as well as planning calsses and grading tests this week, so I am rather tired.

 Work didn't go very well today, I made very little of the work I'm actually paid for, but i'm trying to be a good anarchist and not feel bad about that :)

Rickard and I did laundry however, and I have also made all the spinach and cheese pies for next weekend's SCA event. They are now in the freezer. Tomorrow I will make the dessert pies for the same event. After going to the gym and going shopping down town with Maja.

Rickard is away in Copenhagen over the weekend, to play X-wing.

Yesterday I finished taking in the yellow damask kirtle for my Margareta Leijonhufvud costume.





I won't be wearing this at the event since I will be spending most of it in the kitchen. It is also the event where Måns and I step down as baron and baroness, so I'll be wearing one of our matching shiny outfits for court and then change back into work clothes.

This weekend started with working rather late in the afternoon on Friday, followed by celebrating Imbolc with my coven, and getting rather drunk. Quite intentionally, I needed that. Saturday I was a bit hung over so I didn't go to the gym in the morning. However, I did bake a birthday cake for Rickard, who turned 49, before heading out for some necessary shopping and pokemon hunting with Valeria and Rickard, and then on to the annual general meeting of Gotvik, the local SCA group. It was combined with silk banner painting, but I didn't have the time to spend all day thee. So I brought a small knitting project and hung out with people who painted for a couple of hours before the AGM started.

After the meeting I went home for dinner, and decorated the cake. Neighbour Anna came over and we ended up playing "Cards against humanity" (mine, and the twins' bithday present to Rickard) until half past midnight :)

Woke up late-ish, around 9.30 and had breakfast and went to the gym for an hour. After I got home (and had a bath) Valeria and I finally managed to get around to taking photos of her in her Eleonora di Toledo gown, which was finished in early December.



I will make a page with documentation over at Eva's historical costuming blog, but not tonight, I am way too tired. Especially since after that short photo session we went to my sister's place to celebrate the birthday of the youngest niece (6). Then home, where I did some simple work on the photos, and then made dinner, which consisted of medieval lasagna, that is: home made pasta made from fermented dough, cooked in broth and layered with mozzarella and cinnamon and served. it is wonderful.

After that I knitted on Alfhild's stockings through a couple of episodes of Star Trek the Next Generation, but now I really need to go to bed.

 More (and larger) photos and info in my costuming blog, but here's one photo of the finished hem.



I then did 20 minutes on my exercise bike and now I really ought to go to work. Still feeling slightly sick from the methotrexate, but that won't stop me lecturing of course.

I'm feeling a strong urge to start knitting again. I really shouldn't, however, because I have Valeria's embroidered sleeve to finish and it's 1/3 done and it would be so wonderful to have finished her camicia (enough to be wearable, I will add more embrodery over time). After finishing the sleeve I will line the skirt of her Eleonora gown and attach the skirt to the bodice - another long time project that would be lovely to have finished.

But after that I will knit something, a cardigan or a shawl probably.

I did some quick knitting this week however, I made this for Rickard:

And turned, in this case, since the print really wasn't historical enough. Lots of images here



I've written a short blog post about Italian 15th century coifs here.



The photos are taken by the hospital next to where we live. 19th century architecture can apparently work well as background for Italian renaissance to
And after the photo shoot we raided at the gym there and I finally got an Articuno. Probably the only time someone played Pokémon Go in renaissance clothes around here.

In other news: The holiday was very nice, I bought 15 metres of cotton fabric: 5 metres for curtains in the kitchen (we have three windows, one rather large), 4 metres for a white late 18th century round gown, because obviously I need one of those. I have som printed chintz to use for an open robe over it, cotton broadcloth for a wrap skirt, since I only have one neutral knee length summer skirt that fits me. Patchwork hippie skirts, or ric-rac in abundance is fine, but sometimes you need something more neutral. I also got white, thin cotton broadcloth if I need to make another regency petticoat. Or something. And 2 metres of cotton wit a Halloween print that I hemmed on machine to make it a table cloth for our traditional Halloween dinner.

The first thing I did when we got home on Friday evening was to wash all the fabric and on Saturday I made that skirt.



The blouse is another holiday find: The Salvation Army's 2nd hand shops have racks with blouses for 39 SEK (c. 4,7 dollars) and I bought this one, which is from H&M, and one that I don't think has ever been used, made from white linen.




BTW, here are my holiday photos.

While on Holiday we went to a large, traditional market, where I got lots of cotton hankies, good quality bed sheets, some red and white striped piping, a heart shaped baking tin and two straw hats which will be partly unraveled and made into bonnets.



Some of the fabric was bought at Tygladan, which is close to my home village, and some was bought at Kristinedals fabriker, which not only had lots of nice, cheap fabric, but also used to be a mill making both wool and cotton/linen yarn for weaving.

This was when we visited our friends Kristina and Jonas, who just happened to have this in their barn :)



I did some sewing while on holiday too: I hand sewed most of a new shift for Valeria, it's going to have embroidery at all the seams, and along the sleeves, so I can't add the sleeves until I've made that embroidery. I'm getting supplies for that today. And when I had done as much as I could on the shift I started embroidering on my regency gown again, and I think it will a) be finished for the picninc on the 2nd of September and b) be really pretty.

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.

It took one of my firends less than a minute to guess ;)