flintheath_as | Recent Entries

You are making a thing, trying something new, want to give an introduction to your art or your science. You may even have some pictures. You’re (quite rightly) proud about this and want to show off.

Great!

Here’s how you can use the communal Flintheath A&S blog to do it.

First of all, you can use this blog without having to subscribe to Dreamwidth (though nothing should keep you from starting your own blog if you fancy). You can even comment on a post anonymously.

If you want to write a post yourself, you will need to contact me for the login password (which I don’t want to post here for obvious reasons) at s (dot) huelsmann (at) gmail (dot) com.

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In preparation for a convention this summer, I decided to make a cosplay outfit of one of my favourite webcomic characters: Sky from Linked Universe. Conveniently, the artist of the webcomic shared some concept art showing the (many) layers of his costume, so I could use them as a reference.

(Source)

I decided to ignore the pale-green outer shirt and the chain mail, leaving me with trousers, the outer dark-green tunic or surcoat, and the shirt as well as some accessories.

First, I decided to make the surcoat (party because if the worst came to the worst I could fake most of the rest).

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For the final stage of my Golden Egg project (see Part 1 in the Baelfyr AS LVI 29(3) and at https://flintheath-as.dreamwidth.org/2570.html and Part 2 in the Baelfyr AS LVI 29(6) and at https://flintheath-as.dreamwidth.org/2981.html), it was time to make the girdle itself using silk.

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Having designed the girdle for my Golden Egg project (see Part 1 in the Baelfyr AS LVI 21(3) and at https://flintheath-as.dreamwidth.org/2570.html) I now had to weave it. First, I decided to do a practice run in modern knitting yarn to make sure I understood the technique well enough to manage the final project in silk.

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Last August, at Raglisn’t in Bourn, I began a Golden Egg challenge. For those not familiar, a Golden Egg challenge is an arts and science project of intermediate difficulty for the person doing the project. It must be completed in a year from announcement and presented to members of the Society of the Golden Egg for approval, after which the person who completed the project becomes a member of the Society for three years. The goal is to encourage artisans to continually improve their skills and set high goals for themselves.

My challenge is to recreate the green belt given to Sir Gawain in the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

She unbound a belt swiftly that embracing her sides

Was clasped above her kirtle under her comely mantle

Fashioned it was of green silk, and with gold finished,

Though only braided round about, and embroidered by hand;

And this she would give to Gawain, and gladly besought him,

Of no worth though it were, to be willing to take it.

(translated to modern English by J.R.R. Tolkien)

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is my favourite Arthurian story and the lady’s belt is a major part of the story, representing Gawain’s momentary slip from the faithfulness and honesty he shows elsewhere in the poem and therefore his human fallibility, but also the difficult dilemmas in which he was placed during the poem and how he navigated them: the lady asked him to hide the belt from her husband and he did so, even though that meant breaking a promise he had previously made to her husband. At the end of the poem, he continues to wear the belt as a baldric as a reminder of the adventure and its lessons and it becomes common among the Knights of the Round Table to do the same. I like the symbolism as well as the story of the poem and wanted to make a copy of the green belt for myself. This meant that the first step of my challenge was to research what the belt should look like and what techniques would have been used.

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A surcoat is a long, loose outer garment which can be worn over anything but is stereotypically worn over armour. It's especially useful if you want to make yourself recognisable on the field (the primary period reason to wear one over armour), wear something swanky that shows off your heraldry (also a good period reason to wear one in general), or cover up the fact that all your heavy armour was bought from a HEMA supplier and is made of plastic (a major reason I wanted one).

Surcoats became common from the 12th century onwards for men and 13th century for women and could have sleeves or be sleeveless. The early ones were long with a split at the front and back to allow the wearer to ride and this is the style I went for. Surcoats are also closed at the sides - this is the difference between a surcoat and a tabard - so they need to be fairly full at the hem to allow the wearer to fight.

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Onions were certainly grown in Europe during our period and had been since Roman times; they appear in many Roman recipes and images of them can be found in period manuscripts. I couldn't find any evidence of the skins being boiled for dye in Europe - they were used by Native Americans - but given how common they appear to have been I can't imagine nobody thought of trying it.

I've been planning to try out natural dyeing for some time and had collected onion skins from cooking for the purpose. I got instructions from modern natural dye websites, which also said that because of the tannin content of onion skins the dye would not need a mordant.

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First in a hopefully continuing series ...

Le Ménagier de Downham Market, Episode 0

I'd wanted a warm hood for winter events for some time, since while my woollen cloak has a hood, it's too deep to wear comfortably as it is. I had some attractive fabric left over from making a cotehardie and decided to use some for a hood and line it with wool.

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More on Latin and Palaeography

Latin, Palaeography, and Latin Palaeography, Part II

Here's a thing I'm writing about medievalist stuff, so perhaps it counts as A&S

Alexandre writing about Latin and Stuff.

Alexandre

This is the communal arts and sciences blog for the shire of Flintheath.

We can show off our projects, set challenges if we want to, discuss, share resources, do the art and the science and generally keep in touch.

Below is a random image, just to show that yes, we can save images to this service and show off what we are doing. Click on the image to have a bigger view.

If you are interested in taking part, contact Milada von Schnecken. If you have never used a blog, I will be happy to show you around and explain how it all works.

YiS,

Milada

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Flintheath Arts & Sciences

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Recent Entries

Sticky: So you want to post an entry on the Flintheath A&S blog

Cosplay Surcoat/Outer Tunic

Sir Gawain’s Green Belt Part 3

Sir Gawain’s Green Belt Part 2

Sir Gawain’s Green Belt Part 1

Heraldic quartered surcoat

Onion-skin Dye

Talking about cooking sources ...

Lined Winter Hood

Latin and Palaeography, Part II

Latin, Palaeography, and Latin Palaeography

A&S Rules OK

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May 2024

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