Giving thanks

I've been busy with non-SCA things for a couple of months, but of course "my medieval life" is never far from my mind. Let me summarize things here on Thanksgiving Day.

First of all, service. A few months ago, I took over the role of baronial chronicler. The previous chronicler had been doing the job for seven or eight years. Guess I'm stuck with it for a while. 😃 It's really not that difficult for someone who has been writing and editing for a long, long time. The two hardest things are (a) remembering to get going on the next issue and (b) making the notes of the last baronial business meeting sound coherent.

My other piece of general service is my role as Sea Tyger Pursuivant -- the "heraldic education deputy" for the College of Heralds and Scribes of Atlantia. (I don't do the scribal education part, though.) My task over the next couple of weeks is to contact some people and convince them to teach heraldry classes at the next University of Atlantia session, which is completely online. That session also the weekend after a virtual Known World Heralds and Scribes Symposium; I guess we'll be having those every winter now, because not everyone can get to the summer sessions in person.

And now for A&S...

I am still a member of Laydes Fayre and enjoying it. At one of our rehearsals in September, we held a mini-shower for a member who was expecting a baby. She gave birth, right on her due date, to a healthy baby boy named Declan. We'll also have a cookie exchange at our December rehearsal.

Several of us Laydes who also play instruments have formed an ad hoc mini-consort to perform at an upcoming event called Highland Hearthglow. The Barony of Highland Foorde (the whole northwestern region of Maryland) is holding a cozy day-long banquet event at a lodge in Thurmont that is usually affordable to the wedding-industrial complex. It sounds very posh in a 14th-century, High Middle Ages sort of way. Our mini-consort will be performing several pieces that are NOT dance music. I am no expert, but in general these pieces are slower and easier to play than most of the dance music of the era. You just have to watch out for a few weird bits like occasional irregularities in the time signatures. I think we will sound great together. (Incidentally, I'm playing the soprano recorder. No way do I know enough ukulele for this. I've really put the uke on the back burner with all my mundane work lately. I should really get back into it.)

(Also, the whole Laydes Fayre group will perform at both Hearthglow and Lochmere's Midwinter's Revel. One of the pieces we're rehearsing is called "Ave Maris Stella," which I believe means "Hail the Star of the Sea.")

Of course I am still a member of Three Left Feet. We still rehearse on Monday nights during Storvik fighter practice. I went to a couple of dances at Pennsic 51 (since I helped publicize them, after all). Pennsic wasn't even my biggest dance event of the year; that would be the Known World Music and Dance Symposium, held just outside Indianapolis at the fairgrounds where the SCA 50-Year event took place in 2016. It was a long drive, but I'm glad I went.

With all this musical stuff going on, it's not surprising that I haven't done other A&S stuff lately. At least I've finally hit a holiday lull in my mundane work, so I can pick up a needle and thread again. I have some mending projects to do and a linen chemise that I started sewing two years ago. Plus, I would like to make at least one totally new dress. To that end, I picked up a bin full of really nice fabric -- mostly linen and wool -- from the estate of the late Dame Brenna, who was quite the fabric hoarder in her lifetime. My non-SCA partner is annoyed that I acquired a bunch of fabric when I don't have much storage space, so I'll have to figure out some place to put my new stash until it gets sewn. I'm thankful that I received a copy of The Medieval Tailor's Assistant (2nd edition) for my most recent birthday; it will certainly help with all that sewing!

One final thing I am doing: I am knitting myself a pair of socks. Nothing special or SCA-accurate. Just a pair of socks, because I have not knitted socks in several years.

Early 2021 (but still in A.S. LV)

One of the disadvantages of updating this blog so infrequently is that I need to pack a lot of information into each post. After all, despite the surging pandemic, the virtual SCA world, and especially my Kingdom of Atlantia, is still going strong.

Twelfth Night

The weekend of January 9th was Kingdom Twelfth Night, which was the first one I've "attended" (for some value of "attendance") since 2014, when my barony, Storvik, hosted the event. I got out of bed and dressed in time to see a wonderful ceremony in which one of my friends, Mistress Teleri Barod, took another of my friends, Lady Sonya Flicker, as her apprentice. Afterward they had a nice Zoom chat with us guests, including some I haven't seen online much since the pandemic lockdown began.

Their Royal Majesties, Anton and Luned, held morning and evening courts. At the former, They awarded supporters in the shape of a narwhal to 50 gentles who have been helping to keep the Kingdom afloat during these plague times. At the latter, They gave out a number of awards and recognized a new Laurel.

My partner (he's not in the SCA) made some tapas-style dishes for dinner, which was offline. (Yes, it might have been nice to figure out a way to dine "together" via Zoom, but who wants to watch other people chewing?) Finally, we had an evening ball via Zoom, which was not recorded, so we could truly "dance like no one is watching."

I wore garb all day so I would feel as if I actually was attending the event. With a nod to the overall Spanish theme of the event, which features lots of sideless surcoats for women, here's what I chose to wear:

Mistress Teleri bequeathed the wool surcoat to me some years ago. I should lengthen it, because I'm a few inches taller than she is, but I haven't yet found the right fabric to complement the existing garment.

On top of my head in that picture is a frilled fillet cap (styled as in the Manesse Codex) that I created after taking a class on the subject at last September's Virtual University of Atlantia. I made it out of an old (and quite softened) cotton bedsheet, so I applied quite a bit of spray starch to the final product. I fully intend to make another one out of linen.

By the way, I took the surcoat off when it came time to dance.

University of Atlantia

Speaking of Virtual University ... we have another session coming up on Saturday the 13th. Once again, SO many people submitted class proposals that this session will have seven class periods instead of six. Atlantians love teaching and learning!

This time around I'll be teaching "Your First SCA War." I taught this class a decade ago, but I will update information as necessary and I will also stress that I have no inside knowledge of how the current pandemic will change large SCA events in future months or years or whenever we can have them again.

Another year in the SCA

Happy New Year! Yes, I know that the New Year's holiday was a month ago already. At least we can all agree on that. (Whether the new decade starts at the beginning of 2020 or the end of 2020 is still fodder for debate.)

I know I haven't posted here in a while, so let me catch up.

In 2019 I attended more than twice as many SCA events as I did in 2018. Nice side benefit of having a more reliable vehicle (even though it's still pretty old)! And some of the events came my way -- like Fall Coronation, hosted by my Barony of Storvik.

The incoming Royals, Cuan and Signy, let it be known that They wished Their coronation and Their reign to have a late-period German theme. Many, though certainly not all, attendees decided to wear their best German garb -- think Landsknecht, Cranach gowns, and the like. I personally did not have a German dress, but based on the little I know about late-period Lithuanian and Polish women, I figured that making a German dress would be a good place to start learning how to sew late-period clothing.

So, with the help of a few friends, I drew up a bodice pattern and, based on various images I collected on Pinterest, I managed to put together what I call the "base" of a German Renaissance dress. It doesn't have sleeves yet -- I'm going to make some detachable sleeves, because I hate boiling under multiple layers in the summertime. It doesn't have guards (the contrasting horizontal stripes around the bottom of the skirt). It doesn't have a proper hat yet. But it looked plausibly German enough to wear to Coronation.

I really, really want to do a "dress diary" type of entry with photos and such, but in the meantime, here is a link to a photo of me at the event: https://www.flickr.com/photos/34356022@N03/48855928906/in/album-72157710604512416/. (I had to "kilt up" the skirt because it stretched while hanging overnight and it was suddenly too long. That's what happens when you hem garb the night before the event!)

University of Atlantia

This past weekend my Kingdom held a session of the University of Atlantia, where I taught a class called "The SCA on a Budget." I had some enthusiastic students who made suggestions of their own. Overall, a good experience.

I know I said I'd have a copy of the handout on my blog … I'm still trying to figure out the best way to get it up here, though. My professional Wordpress-based blog handles PDF uploads just fine, but I can't figure out how to do a similar upload here in Blogger. *grumble*

I'll have it up here as soon as I can, honest.

Two events, one site (the year so far, part 2)

In late April and early May I attended two very different events at the same site in the Shire of Spiaggia Levantina, mundanely known as the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

The first was the Shire's own event, Revenge of the Stitch, which is now in its sixth iteration, making it a truly annual event in my book. Some people, I know, would not find staying up almost all night to hand-sew linen very enjoyable, but it gets my competitive juices flowing, and I always learn some aspect of garb-making that had previously eluded me. This year -- my fourth such challenge -- I helped Meisterin Johanna's team make a houppelande with undertunics and hood for Master Richard Wyn in his heraldic colors. I was rather tired after the competition, but I did manage this "action shot" of Master Richard posing in his new duds:



Notice the leather shoes -- they were made during the competition by one of our six team members. I think we were the only team that made footwear this year. We didn't win, but I think Wyn (as he is usually called) looks spiffy in his new outfit.

Half a fortnight later, I was crossing the Chesapeake Bay again for Spring Crown Tournament. The rain held off, the competitors fought fiercely and cleanly, and Duke Cuan won his eighth reign. He and his consort will step up to the throne at Fall Coronation, to be held in Our Glorious Barony of Storvik. My friend Lady Kunigunde will be the autocrat/steward of Fall Coronation, which will have a 16th-century German theme, and I feel highly motivated to make myself a suitable dress for the occasion.

My friend Lady Meleri was the head cook for both of the Spiaggia Levantina feasts, and were they ever good! I could barely finish the last couple of courses at each meal. Meleri dedicated the Revenge of the Stitch feast to one of her schoolteacher colleagues who had operated a catering business on the side ... and who had just passed away from cancer, at a much-too-young age.

Just this past weekend, I attended the 30th edition of Highland River Melees, the signature event of the Barony of Highland Foorde, which encompasses the westernmost counties of Maryland (and is surrounded on three sides by the Kingdom of Aethelmearc). Two of my friends were "retiring" after serving as Highland Foorde's Baron and Baroness for the past five years. I talked with one woman who came all the way from Massachusetts to attend the event because she is a good friend of the new Baroness of Highland Foorde. I have a lot of experience driving between Massachusetts and Maryland, so I know what a haul that is!

During the afternoon, I took a class in using wire to make jewelry that isn't Viking-wire-knitted. Here are my results:



I posed these pins in the order in which I made them from top to bottom. Not a bad start, I'd say. :-) The bottom fibula had three beads at first -- a red bead between the two blue beads -- but the red one must have had a crack in it, because it fell off and got lost. Ah, well.

Only in Lithuania...

Some things about modern Lithuania just make me shake my head and smile. (Imagine the reaction people without any Lithuanian ancestry must have....)

For example, šaltibarščiai, or cold beet soup. I can take it in small doses, because I wasn't exposed to it while I was growing up in the USA, but real Lithuanians really, really love the stuff. In case you're wondering ... it consists of beets and dairy (buttermilk or cream), looks like Pepto-Bismol, and tastes like ... well, beets and milk. It's usually garnished with hard-boiled eggs and dill. You can find a recipe here or on many other websites.

So, imagine my jaw dropping when I stumbled upon a photo of these men's briefs on Facebook:

As George Takai might say: Ohhhh, myyyyy!! Especially note the strategic placement of the hard-boiled-egg slices. You cannot unsee that.

Even more amusing is Google Translate's English version of the product description:

Men's underwear with colds "Horseshoe". For real fanfare fans who are not afraid that the girl will want to eat them from the body. 😂

Apparently there's a whole website called Foodroobai.lt that sells a full line of men's and women's clothing made with this kind of cloth that's printed to look like an endless supply of cold beet soup. (More details on the underpants: "The underwear is made of an elastic microfiber that is pleasing to the body and absorbs moisture and prevents skin contact. Such underwear will be irreplaceable on hot summer days, workouts at the sports club or just if you tend to get more sweaty.") You can get sweatpants, leggings, T-shirts, swimwear ... all in šaltibarščiai cloth that will make you (apparently) look like a cool, delicious summer treat.

Skanaus, indeed!

Still more link parking!

Yes, I really, really want to update this blog, but in the meantime, my browser is about to crash under the weight of all these open tabs. Let me relieve my browser of this burden.

http://www.katarynas.net/ -- Ukrainian/Rus costume research and other stuff -- this appears to be the website of the author of the most recent Compleat Anachronist titled "Decorated Eggs and Pysanky"

https://finnishgarb.wordpress.com/ -- Finnish garb -- a compendium of stuff from the Finnish Iron Age group on Facebook

http://edythmiller.blogspot.com/p/open-hoods.html -- a really interesting page on women's open hoods, with period illustrations (the rest of the blog has good stuff, too)

http://medievalthreads.blogspot.com/ -- why don't I have this one on my blogroll already?

http://odettesobsessions.blogspot.com/ -- might not be completely within the SCA's purview, but still interesting

https://santiagosgrimoire.wordpress.com/ -- blog of a Laurel from the West Coast

http://www.morgandonner.com/2015/10/merchant-class-outfit/ -- a woman's merchant-class outfit for circa 1400 CE

https://maniacalmedievalist.wordpress.com/ -- another good blog to add to the blogroll

https://adamselindisdress.wordpress.com/2015/05/19/the-most-common-mistakes-in-historical-costumingre-enactment-and-how-to-avoid-them/ -- a lot of this blog is post-period for the SCA, but these are still some good thoughts

I promise I'll have a real update soon, but this will have to be it for now....

Quick link parking

Once again: Long time, no post! I'd like to write a longer description of the things I've been able to do in the SCA this year, despite my lack of funds. However, that will have to wait for another day.

In the meantime, I just want to park a few links suggested by a friend who recently taught a class on "How to Be a Veiled Threat in the SCA." I wasn't able to attend her class on veils and wimples, but I definitely want to look these websites up!

http://www.virtue.to/articles/
https://cardiffcastlegarrison.wordpress.com/2014/08/11/how-to-wear-fourteenth-century-veils-and-wimples/
http://rosaliegilbert.com/hairstyles.html
http://rosaliegilbert.com/headdresses.html

After all, I've been in the SCA more than a decade now, so it's definitely time to "up my game."

Links and more links!

Recently I have been exchanging Facebook messages about medieval Baltic topics with a couple of my Slavic Interest Group (SIG) friends, Mistress ffride (Kingdom of Lochac) and Lady Magdalena (Kingdom of Aethelmearc). As a result, I have lots and lots of browser tabs open. Before my computer's memory gets tied up in knots, I really ought to save those links somewhere and close those tabs. What better place to save such links than right here?

Without further ado:

Link that mentions the Gediminas Sceptre in the context of Baltic cosmology. I really wish this page provided some sources.

Academia.edu page for a Lithuanian graduate student in archaeology. Her name is Augustina Kuriliene.

A Vilnius museum's exhibit on Grand Duke Alexander.

History of the palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania.

Some tiles from a cathedral (in Lithuanian). One of those medieval tiles shows a woman wearing what may be a very tall, flat-topped hat. In another tile, two rabbits seem to be consulting a recipe book while cooking a stew. In a third tile, two rabbits appear to be roasting a human chef over a spit. (Revenge of the bunnies!!)

PDF of a 2003 article on Lithuanian archaeology by Daiva Steponaviciene.

Website of some Lithuanian group called Vita Antiqua (I believe Daiva S. is involved with it).

This page seems to list all the commemorations of Lithuanian historical events that will take place in 2015.

Evidence of Lithuanian platform shoes. (Somebody wanted to look taller!)

Another 16th-century tile, this one showing rabbits fending off the hounds. (Somebody really, really liked bunnies!)

Finally, here are a few links that are not specific to the Baltic and Slavic regions but that I find interesting anyway:

The Tudor Tailor website is a companion to the series of books on 16th-century clothing.

Free, downloadable monographs on various topics pertaining to English archaeology.

A Web page on inkle weaving.

Beautiful clothing that one of my friends made for the Baron and Baroness of Dun Carraig (a nearby SCA branch).

And, finally, did you know that there's an authentic butterbeer recipe from the Tudor era? Now you can combine your SCA brewing with your Harry Potter fandom! :-)

As far as the rest of my SCA life goes, well, things are always quieter this time of year. Earlier this fall I skipped a couple of SCA events that I really would have liked to attend because of cash-flow issues. At least I had great fun participating in a "medieval maker faire" demo that Storvik was invited to organize as part of the University of Maryland at College Park's celebration of the 60th anniversary of the publication of Lord of the Rings. This fall Storvik has been welcoming a number of newcomers, both from the university and the region at large. And our barony is planning a performing-arts event in January 2015. And I'm still knitting socks for Lady Sonya's sock classes. So things are quiet but good.

Dresses to go with the cap?

Now that I have a St. Birgitta's cap of my own, what shall I wear it with? This morning I happened to see a relevant post in the SCA Garb group on Facebook. So, right now I'm just parking the links that the comments to that post contained -- various tutorials on fitted kirtles.

http://cottesimple.com/tutorials/

http://medievaltailor.com/kirtles-overview/

http://wp.bymymeasure.com/fitting-and-construction/pattern-a-gothic-fitted-dress

http://wp.bymymeasure.com/fitting-and-construction/drafting-by-measurement

I have no idea whether the "gothic fitted dress" would look good on me or not, but it might be interesting to try it sometime in the future. If it turns out to be not the most flattering thing, I don't have to make any more, and I can still wear the cap with other things -- apparently, it makes a great anchor for a veil.

Cap of St. Birgitta

As I said in my previous post, last month I took a Pennsic University class on how to make a St. Birgitta's cap. Lady Sarai Tindall taught the class. I don't think she has a website of her own, but the method she taught was very similar to the one in this tutorial. The main difference was that Lady Sarai had us leave the ends unconnected to each other, so that we could tie them in a knot or bow. Also, we didn't do the optional embroidery between the two halves of the cap, and we had to "finger-press" the linen seams instead of ironing them (fortunately, in hot and humid weather, that isn't difficult to do).

You can go to the tutorial if you want step-by-step instructions. I would just like to post photos depicting some of the stages of my work.

First, here's how my cap looked toward the end of the two-hour Pennsic class:

I had hand-stitched the two halves of the cap together and finished the gathers at the back of the head, but that's about it. (Granted, a good part of the class was an introductory talk followed by distribution of materials, etc.)

The next time I bothered to take a photo of my work, I had pretty much finished sewing the ties to the front edge of the cap, down to the gathers. The ties came in three separate pieces, including a bit of extra handkerchief linen I had to buy after the class.

I finished the last little bit of stitching only after I got home from Pennsic. Here are a couple of photos of the finished cap on my head (pardon the mundane clothing on the rest of me):

I'm not sure about that bow. Maybe I should redo the strap/tie as a long closed loop that could be wrapped around my head. Hey, I should experiment with this -- what a concept!

I think I have enough of the handkerchief linen to make at least one more of these caps.I might try the same thing, or I might experiment with doing the embroidery down the middle seam, or other embellishments such as contrasting thread for the hand stitching. We shall see.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a few other links related to the St. Birgitta's cap.

http://www.pinterest.com/miriampike/accessories-cap-of-st-birgitta/
http://m-silkwork.blogspot.com/2008/11/womens-caps.html
http://katafalk.wordpress.com/2014/04/21/embroidered-st-birgittas-cap/
http://katafalk.wordpress.com/2014/01/16/st-birgittas-cap/
http://m-silkwork.blogspot.com/2008/08/cap-of-st-birgitta-reconstructions.html
http://larsdatter.com/birgitta-caps.htm

Garb Thoughts for a Midsummer Day

(Author's note: I started writing this on Sunday, June 24, but didn't get around to finishing it. With the big storm and power outages that canceled the June 30 SCA event in my barony, things got kind of crazy. So here is the article as I started to write it ... if that makes any sense.)

As I noted three years ago, today is Lithuania's Midsummer Day, also called Rasos, Kupolės or Joninės. The weather has been heating up around here, but I spent most of today indoors at an Italian Renaissance gown workshop hosted by Mistress Jeanmaire du Doremy. She is a Laurel primarily for late-period clothing, and by "late period," I mean the 16th century.

A couple of blog posts ago, I mentioned that I'm not all that great at making garb. Seriously, the clothing I've made since joining the SCA in 2004 amounts to a couple of chemises, a T-tunic dress, a shorter tunic for wearing over a skirt or pants, a woolen half-circle cloak, a liripipe hood (which I keep misplacing), a couple of veils, and a whole bunch of "bog dresses" or simple cotton chitons. This simple stuff is great for Pennsic. I'm not sorry I made any of it. But if I want to make some authentically Lithuanian (or Polish-Lithuanian) garb, I have two routes: the early-period stuff, with precious little pictorial evidence, or the late-period stuff, where there are at least a few paintings, such as Lucas Cranach the Younger's depiction of the Jagiellon family.

Mistress Jeanmaire's class focused on a particular dress worn in a 16th-century portrait, a print of which hangs on her wall at home. She has already made a gown for herself based on this portrait, and she wore it at the most recent Kingdom Twelfth Night. She explained in detail how to make the four layers: chemise (you must have a chemise specific to this dress), corset, underskirt, and the gown itself. We took each other's measurements and traced out customized corset patterns (after trying on the existing corset). At the end of the afternoon, we agreed to have another meeting in late September, well after Pennsic, when we can show off what we've done so far and continue working on our outfits.

Update on July 6: Since the class, I've dug out my copy of Tarp Rytu Ir Vakaru and looked at the illustrations other than the Cranach portraits. The book has one or two other late-period depiction of women wearing dresses that seem to be more like "Italian Renn" fashions than Saxon gowns. I really ought to bring this book, and the little other evidence I have, to the next gathering with Mistress Jeanmaire and ask her about this. If it turns out that Italy was as much of an influence on Lithuanian fashion in the 1500s and 1600s as the "German" regions (because of Bona Sforza and other "intermarriages" among noble families), that will make my "what to wear" conundrum much easier to resolve.

Happy Lithuanian Independence Day!

Remember, Lithuania is the country that has two "independence days": one in February to commemorate its 1918 independence from Russia and one in March to celebrate its 1990 break with the Soviet Union. So tonight I actually had some pierogies for dinner. Not the world's best pierogies, but still tasty.

And once again, to my dear readers, my apologies for not writing in this blog for so long. (By now, you're tired of reading THAT, right?) I actually did compile a list of A&S activities to write about ... and then I misplaced the list. Why, yes, I am disorganized.

I've been busy, but a friend and I planned to make this weekend (the one that's just ending) into a "project weekend." He has been wanting to make himself a steampunk costume, and I have been wanting to finish a light-blue linen tunic dress that I started last July (before my automotive transmission disaster).

Specifically, my friend wants to make a double-breasted vest from a commercial pattern, and in the past he's worked off of muslin patterns, not the printed-paper ones. So I transferred the pattern to muslin and added in the seam allowances, which aren't printed on these newfangled multi-size costume patterns. I also added a bit of length on the bottom because he's a tall guy. He was happy with how the muslin mockup fit him, so this afternoon he ironed his real fabric and cut out the pieces from the "real" fabric.

Then I dug out the pieces for the light-blue dress and sewed some of it before the threads jammed up near the bobbin of my machine. I think my friend and I can fix it, but we'll take another look at it in the daylight tomorrow. But then I have to get back to "real" work....

A battle well fought

Today I got a nice message from one of my fellow Atlantian heralds. The subject line said, "From my German family to your Lithuanian one..." And in the message he wrote: "Congratulations on a battle well fought." Yes, today is the 601st (601th?) anniversary of the Battle of Grunwald, and after last year, I would be remiss if I didn't mention it. :-)

This month is rather quiet on the SCA front, mostly because people in this region are gearing up for Pennsic XL. I'm slowly working on a simple short-sleeved tunic dress. It's not the most authentic, but I've had the light blue linen in my stash for seven years and it's about time I used it on something. I figure that I can wear it on those really hot, muggy days and look somewhat better than I do in a chiton or "bog dress." I plan to trim the sleeves with the "Spike" (Kingdom populace badge) ribbon that Baroness Janina gave me a few years back, and I should have a new outfit for Atlantian 30-Year.

I also am about to start working on a small cross-stitch project for the prize baskets at the 30-Year event. I'm doing a small ensign based on this design, and I'll probably make it into a pincushion or belt favor. I'm embroidering the ensign rather than "Spike" (a unicornate seahorse) to honor Mistress Moira Maureen ua Seamus of the Green Hills, first Triton Principal Herald, who designed the arms of Atlantia when it was forming as a Principality of the East. Mistress Moira is in a nursing home, last I heard, but I want people to know of the role she played in the Kingdom we enjoy today.

One final note: I'm not teaching at Pennsic this year, but I am considering teaching "Survey of Medieval Lithuania" at Fall University, unless something comes up to conflict with that.

Back from Pennsic

Greetings to all!

On Sunday the 15th I traveled home from a very enjoyable Pennsic War XXXIX, where I taught two sessions of my Battle of Grunwald class and one session of "Survey of Modern Lithuania," which was essentially the same class as this.

Right now I'm just posting a short note to remind my students -- especially my students in the Grunwald class, who got just a one-page handout due to my pressing personal issues prior to Pennsic -- that I haven't forgotten about you and I'll try to get this information up as quickly as possible.

In the meantime, blogger Cathy Raymond ("Loose Threads") has posted a review of the first chapter of Medieval Clothing and Textiles 6, edited by Robin Netherton and Gale R. Owen-Crocker (not "Owen-Crocke" as the cover says!). That first chapter presents a survey of Latvian clothing and textiles from the seventh to the 13th centuries, all based on archaeological findings. Granted, the essay is about Latvia and not Lithuania, but there is some overlap. In particular, I did not realize from other sources that the soil gets slightly different as you move south through the Baltic region, so that scraps of fabric are found in Latvian digs but not in Lithuanian sites. I don't know exactly what creates the change in soil composition, but it does seem to have an effect.

Hmm. Maybe the class I would really like to teach in the future, "Lithuanian Women Through the Ages," will have to become "Lithuanian and Latvian Women Through the Ages." But that is an issue for another day.