So as I add images, I’m tagging garments (with comments on sleeves, collars, hems, and fastenings), headwear, accessories, decade, country, and genders in the picture. The source and folio, etc, are added if I can get them (and mostly I’m not adding things if I can’t). Is there anything I’m overlooking that I’m gonna regret, once I’m 1K images in?

This site is *fabulous*. I got sent to this from a random article, and just as a test, typed in a book I had been looking for for *years* (Margaret Scott’s The History of Dress: Late Gothic Europe, 1400-1500) and never found for a price I was willing to pay. It found it… in Canada… for something resembling half the price I had found it elsewhere. (And yes, I should get it next week.)

::happy dance::
Enjoy!

Little coral necklace.

1. Coral beads found at Pennsic while looking for paternoster beads.
2. Random red silk thread.
3. Leftover dress hook and eye.
4. Lots of knots. (Yes, between every bead.)
5. As seen, sort of, in certain Tacuinum Sanitatis images – at least that’s what I was thinking about when I bought the beads, though they’re a little small.

Isn’t it cute?

I’m very proud of my web staff today, as over that rainy weekend they were able to push out a brand new website for the Barony.  Go take a look: windmastershill.org.

You’ll spot the brand new Baronage Blog, which Guenievre and I will use to communicate with the rest of the populace, as well as pimp up comming events and projects, and to report on such things once they have passed.

Also, our Baronial Calendar is now 100% web user generated.  That’s right, if someone wants to hold a meeting, practice, get-together, A&S workshop, what ever, they can go up here and add it to the calendar themselves.  No need to email it to someone, who will have to hand code it and then ftp it up to a website.

So, Windmasters’, go sign up and look around.  Other Baronies, bow down before the awesome that is our new website!

Mother of pearl and agate paternoster.

So… first of all was the restring of the mother-of-pearl paternoster.  I put this one together at Pennsic last year, and it unfortunately broke the second time I wore it. Apparently I lost a few beads in the process, as it was originally 8 decades, and in this iteration, is only 7 decades. It’s strung on a 3-bowe fingerloop braid (I started at fingerloop.org for instructions, but in order to match the thread to the size of the bead holes, went here for a simpler, narrower option).

Bone and agate linear paternoster

The red silk is Soie d’Alger in color 944, the beads were bought at Pennsic and are all roughly 12mm – they’re a bit heavier than I’d like. Hopefully, since this paternoster is on a braided cord, it won’t break like the other one due to the weight.

The second paternoster is made from much smaller, antiqued bone beads (8mm) with the same agate gauds as the first paternoster, strung on splendor silk. This one is a linear one, instead of a circle – these seem to be a bit more common for men, and since this one is for Girard, I thought it would be a nice change.  The charm on the other end is from Fettered Cock pewters – while it’s technically a symbol of courtly love, and not precisely appropriate for a paternoster, it looks reasonable and doesn’t make me twitch. (I’m not Christian, though my persona of course is; for me paternosters with real religious symbols on them feel very disrespectful to wear. YMMV of course).

15 decade coral paternoster

Figure from the Tres Riches Heures

The last one of the group is the most fun though. I’ve been working on (slowly – I really need to embroider faster!) an outfit from the Tres Riches Heures. So I found some (admittedly dyed, admittedly probably plastic-stablized sponge coral, given the price) gorgeous red coral beads on ebay, and put this together. It’s strung on 4 strands of Soie Perlee, which is a gorgous, filament silk thread (also seen in the tassel). The white bead is carved bone – chosen mostly because it was the largest thing I could find in the size and color I wanted.

Oh – and a quick question. For those of you who already have paternosters like these (I know I’m late to the party), how do you store/transport them so the tassels don’t tangle? The filament silk doesn’t seem to be a problem, but the spun silk tassels (the red and green ones) seem really prone to getting messed up. (And apparently waste/spun silk WAS used for tassels, so that’s not the problem, except perhaps the part where I’m not wearing them all the time).

Because I enjoy trying new things, my favorite yearly competition is Atlantia’s Persona Pentathlon. The rules are simple – 5 items in at least 3 categories, all related to a specific persona – but the scope of putting together that many items for a single event makes it a challenge.

In 2007, my entry was inspired by one of its five components – a translation of Le Recueil de Riom. This cookbook was written by an anonymous author in 1466, and I have chosen to conjecture that it was written by a cook, rather than by someone merely interested in food. This would not be unusual; other cooks of the 14th and 15th century wrote down their works (for instance, Maistre Chiquart, head cook to the Duke of Savoy at the turn of the 15th century, wrote an eloquent description of the items needed to produce a feast.) Given this persona, my entry deals almost exclusively with food. Though I didn’t win, I did receive a Silver Nautilus.

The entries are as follows:

1. Le Recuil de Riom – A Translation of a 15th Century French Cookbook. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only English translation that has been prepared of this work.
2. A calligraphed copy of Le Recueil, in French. This was done in a similar scale and hand to the original manuscript.
3. Haricot of Lamb - – This dish was based on recipe 20, Ung haricot de mouton, from Le Recueil.
4. A Subtlety. This dish was found not in Le Recueil, but in a contemporary edition of Le Viandier du Taillevent, which shares several recipes with Le Recueil.
5. A survey of Cameline Sauces. Cameline sauce was one of the most popular sauces in the medieval French corpus, and was found in various forms. It could even be purchased at a sauce vendor. These sauces, however, varied significantly though they shared a name – I have included several variations that may have been used by the anonymous cook.