Cudgel War

So it is over. And I am alive. I had two days off from work after the Cudgel which was a very good idea. I had a change to relax and I found my self cleaning the house and organizing the things here (weird.. I thought that I am full of cleaning after the Cudgel.. but I couldn’t stop cleaning.. well to be honest, I had a reason to clean because my father, Aaro and Outi came to stay a night with us after their travels to the Gotland).

But about the Cudgel. We were the first at the site. Beautiful, peaceful as Kavalahti is always we felt that we game home. I was very happy most of the camp. Everything went well. We didn’t burn the food etc. As I actually thought so before the camp I really didn’t have time to take pictures. I took only few at Wednesday when it was our day off from kitchen. It was too hectic. Sometimes 100 meters is too much to walk after staying in kitchen 10-12 hours. 

It is hard to say which day was the best “food day”. I might say that I liked “the fish with herbs and aubergines in Moorish style etc.” day most. One of the highlights of the event was the first Saturday when Sahra brought my new pointy shoes for me! And of course the Wednesday was great also! Ulf went to see the Crown Turney event site with Vilhelm and Katheryn and I had some me time with book and white vine. I also had some time to practise some archery and get some sleep also. At Wednesday court Ulf got his third Aarnimetsä’s Marshlight this time the colour of the Marshlight was purple. Wednesday was also the first time that I wore my new Italian dress. Although it is made of wool I was’t that hot (it was very sunny and hot temperature but still). I think that at the last Saturday when I wore it again, was hotter than the Wednesday. 

Rest of the event went as the beginning. Sunny days, sauna, lake, campfire etc. At the event I bought some new books and I got two small wooden benches. One of the book is Constance Hieatt and Sharon Butler´s Pleyn Delit (cooking book) and one is a book about Holbein paintings. I am not sure if I like the Pleyn Delit book yet. There are some very “interesting” things at the beginning of the book (maybe because it has been written in 1976). But there are “original” recipes also so I can always forget the redactions and just read the recipes. Ah and I really need to start making some embroidery with woollen threads… because I have two big bags of different kind of woollen threads now also. 

The White Partlet

White partlet for my Italian renaissance outfit is finally done. I finished it last night about 1 a.m. So now I am very tired and my shoulders are killing me but I am happy about that I don’t have to do anything else today than pack for the Cudgel War. Cudgel War starts tomorrow. I have almost reached my goals for this summer. I still don’t have hand made socks and drawers and I only have one chemise and I only have one renaissance outfit but I am slowly getting more and more non mundane things and I am slowly turning to the renaissance. I think that making renaissance outfits using only hands takes more time than making most of the other things I have made this far. And the best thing is I can wear my Italian outfit at winter times also when I make woollen sleeves to it.

So after Cudgel War I will start making those sleeves, socks, drawers and Flemish peasant outfit.  

Short Update

I have been sewing and unsewing my white partlet today. I realized that I have cut too small neckband so I have to cut a new one. I went to our local fabric store today and they told me that they managed to order more that blue creyish wool to me. Last time they didn’t know if there will be that wool in other stores. So I was very lucky. It seems that Sahra will have her blue creyish wedding dress and I am going to have also blue creyish Flemish peasant dress :D. I will try to make the dress turnable so I could have both dark blue and blue creyish dress… depending on my mood.

New Apron

I finished my newest apron couple of minutes ago. I am going to wear this apron with my Italian dress until I have time to make white linen apron with blackwork stripes. I can also wear this with my Flemish outfit in future. This was very easy to do. I started on making it yesterday (with no sewing machine…). There are also a smocked apron and one more colourful apron in my wish list. But these are something I might do next year. 

My white partlet is not done yet. I am clad that I have 3-4 days left to make clothes before the Cudgel and I don’t have to go to work next week. Making that white partlet is harder than I thought. I have instructions about how to make them, but still. I think this http://www.margospatterns.com/partlet.pdf was the best instruction this far that I have found. 

10.7.

All the recipes for the Cudgel War’s lunches and snacks (except Wednesday snack) are written down. Tomorrow is the last day at work before my vacation. Saturday we will go to Turku to buy things with Ulf and Sunday we will have quests. I will try to remember to take my camera with me to the Cudgel and maybe take some pictures about the foodstuff also. It is of course different thing to make food for two people than making food for 70 people. I was thinking about if I have time after Cudgel I could put some of the recipes here with (or without?) the pictures.

Hihi.. Couple nights ago I had a very funny dream. I thought that it was real for some time but it is not real… yet. In my dream I was reading my blog and someone has written into my blog that he or she doesn’t like my blog because there are so many writing errors :D… hih hih.

I need to go to sew my white partlet now… after tomorrow I will be FREEEeeeee…for awhile.  

6.7.

The Italian dress is done. When I have more time I will make sleeves to it. But now I need to make a white partlet. Also Cudgel War’s menu is almost done and the recipes are fixed. Some of the vegetarian alternatives are not yet decided but I have lots of ideas what we might do. I am not physically exhausted anymore like I was yesterday. But I admit that I am just a little bit mentally exhausted right now because it has been though weekend. Doing things at advance, not at last day, makes me enjoy the event more so having little mental exhaustion right now is worth it I am sure.

5.7.

Here are some photos about my Italian dress (all hand sewed). It is not done yet I need to sew the decorations to the hem. I am very tired after last night. We went to Ruis Rock festival to listen some heavy metal and my left foot is so sore now that I can’t put the shoe on the foot :). 

By the way the blue creyish fabric I bought to my Flemish peasant dress. It is not mine any more. I gave it to Sahra for her wedding dress (mainly because it is hard to find good wool). It is also a wedding gift from us. Instead of that I bought some nice dark blue wool for the Flemish dress. And I might found more that blue creyish wool from other stores. 

3.7.

I am very excited that Cudgel War is coming soon. I think about it a lot. These days I hate more headaches and pain (in my shoulder) because these things make me do things slower and I need and want to be fast now. Today I will sew more than yesterday. I hope that the dress is done by Monday. I have some decoration undone and I need to finish the hem. I am going to write some recipes down also today like yesterday and day before that and day before that and so on. I am glad that Ulf helped me today because we still have lots to do. Almost everything is in my head and in papers and books. I still haven’t decided some of the dishes. We want all the recipes fixed and enlarged by next Monday too. I have to send some emails and make some phone calls today also.

As always it is hard to find good dishes for the vegetarians for that long event (9 days). I don’t have anything against the vegetarians but when you want to be as accurate as possible it might be a problem to find good food without meat (or meat stock…). Well I might have limited point of view in this situation because I love meat. I can only try my best to make them happy also.

I am happy about that we don’t have so many recipes this time that we would need to try before making them at the event. Medieval recipes tend to be quite similar. That makes planning easy. I admit that we also tend to use same kind of recipes over and over again (ok, well last year we did lots of stuff we hadn’t done before that… and usually there is one or more things that we haven’t tried). But anyway the basics are the same all the time. One of the reasons is that if we know that people like something we want to make it or something like it again. And we of course cannot use expensive stuff when making food for lunches and snacks at the Cudgel. Well anyway the main thing is to get people full enough.

I think that some of the recipes, although they are very good, different, interesting etc. are too hard to make when you don’t have enough cooking space, people to help at the kitchen and the time. Having only few hours to prepare the foodstuff etc. are different things at our events comparing to Medieval times when the time/place/number of kitchen workers wasn’t the issue it they wanted to for example start preparing the “big” feast weeks advance.