Błękitny zamek / Blue Castle

kolaż, rysunek tuszem akrylowym / collage, acrylic ink drawing,
format A4

Chodził mi po głowie, wyświtlał się pod powiekami gdy zamykałam oczy idąc spać, najpierw czarno-biały, z czasem nabierał kolorów. Kompilacja wszystkich wspomnień przywiezionych z bajecznych miejsc w których byłam i barwnych ilustracji obejżanych przez lata na poźółkłych kartach manuskryptów.

najlepszy przyjaciel kobiety...

Z biżuterią przez wieki / Jewelry through the ages

 

... na zawsze i od zawsze czyli błyskotki ze złota, srebra, platyny i kolorowych kamyczków. Bizantyjskie, romańskie, gotyckie, georgiańskie i wiktoriańskie.

Late medieval burgundian framed purse

Single ring harp-fremed purse.
I used gold wire and silk thread to attach a chamois leather bags to copper alloy purse frame. Fringes and tassels are based on decorations of purse dated ca. 1430 from Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

another pillow cover

I remade this pillow case because I found enough pictures to know I made a mistake last tame. So I removed a portion of fabric and left only classic criss-cross pattern.


Parzival, Hagenau, 1443 - 1446, Cod. Pal. germ. 339 fol.147r
(Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg)

Tod Mariens, 1495, Reichenbach, Deutschland

Hl. Urlich, 1480 90, Kaufbeuren, Schwabien
(IMAREAL'S Image Server)

Wurzach Altar-death of Mary, Hans Multscher, 1437, Berlin Staatlische Museum
(Web Gallery of Art)

Linen pillow covers

Pillow covers are made from hand woven, vintage linen fabric.

This is the earliest example of this kind od striped pattern I found. The illustration is from Toggenburg Bibel dated about 1411 (source: Bildindex).

My new plates

A few months ago I saw very decorative serving (?) plate found somewhere in Holand, (now in Amsterdam museum collection). During the last The Company of Saynt George event in the Castle Haut-Koenigsbourg in Alsace/France I bought two marvellous reconstructions of this plate made by Jimmy the potter from Trinity Court Potteries

Pelicea for Tommy

Finished sheepskin gown

and a spiral lacing detail: 5 mm wide silk ribbon lace with brass fitting

Pewter excellences

I ordered spoons and a pewter cast needlecase from The Lionheart Replicas. Those things are georgious!

And my precioussss...

Torlop pictures

First is scene from the altar with 12 scenes from life of Christ, from Koeln, dated 1450/1460 (source: Bildindex web page).

Second example: Passion of Christ by Conrad von Soest, 1401/1415, Rauschenberg.

Next is my beloved "Altar of the ten commandments" from Church of the Holy Virgin in Gdansk (Danzig). It's dated about 1488 and was painted by Unknown Master from South Germany. The man in torlop also wear black hood and have axe so maybe it's a sailor.
The last you can see here: Web Gallery of Art (very short jacket worn by kneeling man).

Update

I started to sewing together all pieces of sheepskin gown for my son. I'm using the felled (overlapped) seam which is a combination of running and oversewing stitches. I hope it's strong enough to survive.

Something new, something old...

Last week I started to work on sheepskin gown known in medieval times as a "pellicea" (in Central Europe named "torlop" or "kozukhy"). The most characteristic for this kind of clothes is that they haven't outer layer of cloth, just one layer of fur (the visible side of garment is leather not hairs). In polish medieval chronicles "torlop" is mentioned from the end of 14th century as a garment of court and nobility members. The "torlop" made from sheepskin was favorite gown of polish king Vladislavus Jagiello at the beginning od 15th century and the same type of garment was also worn by sons of king Casimir at the second half of 15th century.

I found just 4 fine pictural evidences of this type of clothes from Koeln/Cologne, Darmstadt and Danzig/Gdansk. All of them are from years 1430-1490. The most interesting for me was example from Darmstadt because it's example of children garment:

Of course I know that it's just a symbolic picture of Apostel Jacob the Minor but with written evidence of shippskin clothes worn by sons of king Casimirus it's quite possible that this garment was worn by children also in real life.

I also finnish my first embroidered woolen cushion:

Toy horse

I made this horse puppet for my son because he loves a soft toys. He has his the most beloved rat from Ikea but unfortunatelly it's modern toy not suitable for our medieval reenactment activites.
The shape of horse body is based on clay horses found in a Carmelite friary in Esslingen, Germany and Toy horse from Nuernberg/Nuremburg. In my research I used fabulous web base made by Karen Larsdatter.
The horse is made from strong but light weight unblanched linen, stuffed by linen thread and embroidery decorated. To make a horse mane I used couched stitch-main thread is hemp and couching thread is linen.
Of course the horse is not finished jet, I must decided how to make a tail and other decorations.

2008.12.21
I made a tail-it's a simple tassel. My son loves this horse.

Progress on a cushion

I started with second color. So now my eagles are laying down on a green grass. I saw bright green cushions painted by medieval artist in a manuscript from BNF (it was "Biblie Historiale" from beginning of 15th century, sygnature Français 3) and I decided to use so vivid colour of thread.

More examples of the cushions from this book you can see on the web page http://mandragore.bnf.fr/html/accueil.html (choose "Recherche" from menu and type sygnature "Français 3" in Manuscrits "Cote" window).

I finished!

I bought a pair of brass buckles made by Nina so now my garters are finished!

Last two weekends I spent in Bern as a guest of Company of Saynte George. It was magical time with a new and old friends. We participated in a huge exposition about Charles the Bold organized by Historical Museum of Berne (see this web page).

Tubular tablet-woven braids

At last I try to make some tubular woven braids using technique described in "Textiles and clothing 1150-1450" on page 135. My braids was worked on 3 four-hole tablets, threaded all in a S-way and turned one turn forwards after each passage of the weft. The weft was passed always through the same side.
First time I used one colour threads ( red, madder dyed), second time I combined indigo blue and reseda yellow silk threads.

a pair of silk garters

The garters are 60 cm long and 1.6 cm wide. I made them using silk thread, madder dyeing. Weaving technique simulated striped damask.
They need just two nice buckles :)

tiny clothes

During a last two weeks I researched iconography looking for late medieval children clothes, especially linen tunics or shirts. I decided to reconstruct two types of them - simple, classic shape tunic and shirt with open front and short sleeves.

medieval bread?

I bought this bread in Turkish shop. It's amazing, but the shape of this bread is still the same as in medieval times. This is white, wheat flour bread with yeast added (as a starter). I found very interesting recipe here: http://www.coquinaria.nl/english/recipes/MEbread.htm
After comparing (I'm not sure) I suppose that recipe is almost unchanged :)

Leather purse from Vienna

Unfortunately, the original I know only from black and white foto with not so detailed records.
Thanks to Isis and Machteld I knew how to fix small coin purse to body. I used chain seam described in theirs blog as a "lussenvlechten" or “embroidered braids”. All leather laces are still unfinished- I must buy swiss glass beads and sewn them in grape-like form at the end of each lace.