Turku Medieval Market

Yesterday I went to Turku Medieval Market. I hung around most of the time with Sahra and Knut. I took some pictures from the Market and spend lot of money. I have now a new lantern and a thing that is some kind of pouch holder thanks to the lovely Polish people who came to the Market also this year. I am not feeling quite good now so I will keep this short this time. Although I am not feeling good I am happy. Yesterday was wet and cold but fun!
           

          
 
I created a Flickr account yesterday so there are more photos about the Market. As usually I don’t know how to use it yet (haven’t read the instructions ;)). http://www.flickr.com/photos/evagrelsdotter/ .

Problems with the bodice

Ok, so yesterday I realize that after all sewing and unsewing my bodice is still too big. And because I want to be completely happy about it I will unsew a little bit and make it smaller (doesn’t matter that I need to sew lots of lacing rings all over again). As I have told earlier it is my dream that one day I will have a renaissance outfit so it doesn’t matter if I make mistakes as long as I am happy with the result. Being happy or at least satisfied to the result is what counts. I try not to have too high expectations towards my skills. So I have lots of sewing to do and less than three weeks left. 

Sewing and unsewing

Ouch! I haven’t written here for a long time. Or it feels like that. It is also a common sentence at blogs. My reason is the same than most of the blog writers. I have been busy and my stress level has been too high too long so I needed a break. Two weeks before the Midsummer celebrations was very stressful and it was my fault, I made it stressful. I have to admit that I am not good handling stress and I need to start doing things differently or I will be very sick soon. That doesn’t mean that I can’t so as much as I want to. It means that if I want to do as much as I want to I need to find how to handle the stress also. So I try to stop and think every time I think that the stress is coming. Thinking and realizing that it is only stress and you don’t want that, has helped me last couple of days especially at work. The stress was so bad that I couldn’t do much at work or at home so I am behind my schedule (I am not going to stress about that). Hmm… I didn’t plan to write this here.. but maybe it is better to write it somewhere so I don’t forget it (that might happen still, but I hope not).

Back to the business. My bodice is still not finished. I thought that it was done and I tried to attach the hem to the bodice. Well I manage to do that but I didn’t like the way it looked (I made 1 cm pleats to it and there was simple too much fabric). I know that the dress should look full but too much is too much I say! So I will cut the hem smaller and make bigger pleats and I hope it will look better after that. After this episode I read from Tudor Tailor book

how I can attach the bodice and the hem together easier. Again it is very typical for me to do first and read after that how to. But anyway I need to shorten my bodice also.       

                     

There will be Medieval market at city of Turku next weekend. We will go there! I hope to see many friends there and I am looking for those delicious lamb sausages they usually sell at the market also. Maybe I’ll remember to take my camera with me :D. 

Cauliflower Soup

This weekend we wanted to try to use the crock pot and see how long it takes to make food with it. I wanted some soup so we decided to try Cauliflower Soup from Ken Albala’s Cooking in Europe 1250-1650. The recipe is early 17th cent. Belgian.

Cauliflower soup

Place in the pottage cauliflower, sausages, some chicken or pigeon or grilled mutton, and a bit of chopped mint.

My thoughts:

About 800 g cauliflower
450 g chicken (not marinated: breasts, legs what ever. If you use chicken with bones you should remove the bones before serving)
200 g sausages
fresh mint
chicken stock as much as you need to make a soup
(salt if needed)

Break the cauliflowers into florets and put them into a cooking pot. If you want you can fry the chicken with butter or olive oil before putting the chicken into the cooking pot. The chicken will taste better if fried. Cut the sausages into small pieces and put the pieces into the cooking pot. Add as much chicken stock as you need to make a soup. Slowly cook (about 4-5 hours if using the crock pot or about 1 hour if you use normal stove) as long as the cauliflowers are done. Add more stock or/and salt if needed. Sprinkle some chopped fresh mint to the pot before serving.

My lemon liqueur is almost done. It will be done till Cudgel Wars. Also my aniseed liqueur is done. I need to open next vodka bottle soon because I need to put some more vodka into the aniseed liqueur. So I have to decide what to do with the rest of the vodka. I am thinking about making some cherry liqueur. I think that if I do that soon the liqueur might be done by fall.

I am quite tired because I have been doing lots of work with my Italian dress and planning the foodstuff for the Cudgel Wars all the weekend. We woke up today about eight a clock and I found my self sewing at nine a clock. And last day was same than today (except that yesterday I spend little time outside weeding our front yard). I think that I will watch some TV now :D.

Lucet

The lucet is a very interesting gadget. Last Tuesday I went to city of Vantaa (near to Helsinki) because I had a job meeting there. I travelled by train and bus and it took all together abut eight hours going there and back. So I had plenty of time to read and for my crafts. I decided that this time I will bring my lucet with me because I need to make braids for my Italian ren. dress and for my black partlet also. For my Italian dress I need three braids because I am going to make three lacings for the bodice. Here are some links about the lucet and making braids with lucet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucet
http://kws.atlantia.sca.org/photos/lucet/

... and a picture about my lucet and the braid that I am making..

But anyway making something odd like crafts and reading an odd book about Medieval clothing or Medieval food makes other people in the same train or bus very interested. So I have learned now that if one want's to be alone one should not do anything odd like crafts (except knitting a sweater or something like that). Well, to be honest I don't mind people asking about what I am doing (but it is still little bit funny). I had a lovely conversation at the train with a woman (she is a high school Swedish teacher... I hope that you found my blog...) who sat next to me while travelling to Helsinki.

About the dress I am making.. I have fixed the pattern for my Italian dress bodice and I have started to cut the fabric. I have cut the lining for the bodice and today will cut some thick linen between the lining and the outer fabric. I think that I need to put a picture here about the progress also… I am making a dress similar than those in Vincenzo Campi’s beautiful paintings:
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/c/campi/vincenzo/index.html