I wasn’t sure if I’d blogged about this before, but a quick glance through old posts says no. Get a cuppa (go find the cup you started if you’re anything like me) and settle in for some random musings.

My crafting time, of late, has been sparse because of a whole lot of RL. A healthy chunk of that RL is due to people around me moving from a larger space to a smaller space. Sometimes willingly and long planned, and sometimes abruptly and with little warning. The former is not so bad, you at least get the time and opportunity to go through and give away, or donate things in a thoughtful manner. The later? Well sometimes it’s not even you who might be going through your things to downsize. It’s hard, it’s emotional, even when you get to take the time to go through things, and it sucks. There wouldn’t be entire TV series about decluttering if this was easy.

Dalla’s opinion of winter

In the helping to pare down (and in my own decluttering, which has no reason or timetable, save we own too darn much stuff), I’ve noticed a lot of things that were tucked aside as just for show. Or too nice to use. Or kept for a special occasion. Still in their packaging, and clearly many years old. Now, as we downsize, sent off to the thrift store (or my house).

And so I sit sipping my morning coffee, with a lovely little crystal candle holder, and a candle that was ‘kept for good’ for so long that it’s lost both its scent and it’s colour due to age. It’s not ruined, it still burns, but would have been so much nicer in its prime. The same with now expired treats from the back of the pantry. The never opened pretty napkins. The yarn ‘too good’ to dare use.

Special yarn becomes special mitten.

That last one is a big one, and could be any craft. I read about people finding ‘hacks’ to use lesser quality materials while they are learning, because they are ‘scared’ of the good stuff. Except that the ‘good stuff’ is actually pretty average stuff, and their great hack to use the cheap stuff might well turn them off the craft entirely. There’s a line here, certainly. I don’t advocate a beginner scribe going for the fancy real gold on their first scroll. Beginner knitters might want to explore cotton a few times before heading to silk. First garb out of cotton rather than linen? Makes total sense. But there’s a limit. Shredding up acrylic yarn to learn to spin when you have wool roving available is not helpful, IMO. Use the basic wool roving, there’s more sheep. There’s more roving, it’s fine. Knit with wool after you have the basics down, give silk a try. You’ve got thumbs, you got this. Weave with the nice stuff, get the feel for it.

Fortune cookie wisdom from my desk.

Life is short, and it’s unpredictable, and you’re worth it. Yes, even you who feels totally not worthy, are worth it. Burn the candle, use the pretty napkins and knit with the special yarn.

This is going to be a long winded navel gazing commentary, feel free to just admire the pictures scatted within, or just close and walk away. I’ll never know. 😉

I considered just not mentioning the fact that it’s been a little while since I posted.  It’s not actually been that long, but I am struggling to find things to post about right now. Largely I post on what SCA related things I’ve been working on and while I’ve been working on a lot of creative work over the last little while.. but very little of it is A&S, per se.

I went to an art workshop. Apparently I like playing with colour.

A lot of mundane work, knitting mostly. Dabbling in period-esque things, but without bothering to research much. Just playing, and I was trying to work out why I was settled back into old familiar paths. I’ve made plans, but little else. The why of my own head chewed around for a while, and there’s some big thinky thoughts, and some purely pragmatic reality of Holiday crafting having a timeline and canning various fruits and vegetables doesn’t wait for anyone. I also had a bit of an ah-ha moment just recently. I’d danced at the edge of my skill level (and truthfully.. my energy level) and like Wiley E. Coyote when he’s run off a cliff, and dangles in the air for a moment, I paused there for a little while before crashing. Alright, so the metaphor works better for the reality of running on fumes for too long, than specifically creative work, but it’s not terrible there either. I had a few projects that were big (in my mind, or in my heart) and I didn’t do them as well as I thought I could and after that crash, I fled back to the familiar. Are they necessarily projects that others looked at and thought ‘damn, Lucia.. that’s a disappointment’.. possibly not. No one’s said such to me, and I fully expect that no one will, because it’s less about other’s interpretation of my work, and wholly about my own reactions. Like entirely too many of us, I’m a perfectionist, and I struggle to be a beginner. To live in that gap between taste and skill, and the reality of being a jack of many trades (not all.. there’s a long list of things I’ve no desire to do.. but the list of things I do love is crazy), means I don’t practice any one thing to the depths of a true expert.

My coworker’s current door quote. I think we can all relate.

I am unlikely to ever be a one craft kinda gal. I’ve settled in the richness of time into alchemy and string, but both of those are HUGE categories. There are a few places that are like crawling into a favourite safe space, where challenges are interesting diversions, and the confidence is there. The 10, 000 hours have been invested, and things just work. I don’t need to have quiet, brain engaged, uninterrupted time to knit a hat, or a sock. I can just do it and have the fingers busy without much investment. I can weave without much thought, but getting a loom warped is a much higher commitment of brain power, and so it sits, waiting for heddles.

Waiting for heddles.

That was a lot of rambling to say ‘hey, not working on much A&S right now, lots of mundane stuff’. Holiday gifts are in full swing, I made a terrible batch of hand cream. (It’s fine, it’s just not what I wanted, and I made a huge mess while making it.). I have beer waiting to be bottled, and grain waiting for me to be home for a few hours, all in a /row/ to become more beer. I’ve a loom waiting to be heddled, and cloth asking nicely to be both mundane clothes and garb, and there’s a lot of life going on.  It’s okay to have a pause, a lull even. I’m reminding myself more than anyone else. Deep breath, we got this.

So that was a thing. It’s an amazing thing. It’s a medieval city that pops up in the middle of nowhere over a few weeks, around a war. For me, the only bits of the war I hear about comes from campmates who return sweaty and exhausted and chattering about tactics and reliving hits and who gets the shower first and repairs that need to happen before they do it again tomorrow.

Waiting to troll in

A word of warning, I am just as awful about taking pictures at Pennsic as I am everywhere else. This is gonna be a lot of rambling, and not a lot of pretty pictures. Sorry about that, you’ll have to close your eyes between paragraphs and pretend.

For me, Pennsic is about A&S. (I’m sure you’re all shocked, based on the name of this blog and all of the content to this point.) I spent 2 weeks, top to bottom, A&S. From peace week projects in camp (usually garb I hope to wear <cough>), to helping out at University point, to taking classes (and teaching classes), and chatting with other artisans I meet, to A&S display, both looking at everything and helping with the consults to a full day of A&S war point. (Oh hey look at that, we do contribute to the war effort, a teeny little bit.)

We’ve a mix of talents in camp: from experts in sewing, to woodworkers, to blacksmiths, textiles, brewers, cooks and of course everything that all of the curious natures in camp have poked their noses into, even if not an expert. There’s a lot of questions asked, and answered, and written down to look into more later (or googled). It’s amazing. I can only presume that most camps are like this, cause most SCAdians have so much knowledge crammed in, it can’t help but burble out, but I can only speak for our camp.

This year, I managed to take a couple of classes (one of Cariodoc’s middle eastern food classes, and a warp weighted loom class), taught my saponification class (more on that in a moment), volunteered at University point, helped out with consults at A&S display (and got a lot of good gawking in). I got to stop by a friend’s vigil AND got a see a friend elevated to laurel in a drive by. I managed to be out and about enough to catch some of a friend’s camp’s song night, and finally got to see midnight madness. I got to visit the hot stone brewing setup, and got to help out a smidge at war point and judge all day. Phew. It was a busy year, but it was good.

Yeast ring at the brewing demo

Saponification class was held, by sheer dumb luck (or exceptionally cleverness by the scheduling people!) immediately following one of Mistress Elska’s hands on classes in soap making. It was perfect. I had 5 students, and 4 of them arrived with their bottles of proto-soap, answering perfectly the ‘how many of you have made soap before?’ question. It went well. It doesn’t go for a whole hour, so I can add more information, but I do fear overwhelming people with info, so I’ll have to consider that for next time. The modern alchemy series seems to be moderately popular.. I’m teaching the mordents one again at Althing. I need to see if there’s anything I want to revise in that one. FooL feels so very long ago at this point.

I’m really pleased with how well the body held up this year. Every year has been better for the joints than the last. It’s almost like years of physiotherapy and healing actually helps, even with degenerative issues. It was the sort of year where I didn’t die walking home after the buses stopped running, and where I ended up downtown (or back in camp) having forgotten my cane somewhere. When you feel hale enough to forget your cane places, it’s a damn fine sign. I still have to be careful, and aware not to overdo it, but that line is getting pushed further and further, and I’m damn pleased by that reality. I’ll take it for as long as I might have it, won’t be forever, but I’ve got it for now.

My new mug

Community is everywhere. It’s a notion that can come from physical proximity.. your neighbourhood, your canton, or shire or barony. It can come from shared interest.. the birding community, the fighting community, the A&S community. It can be in person, or from afar over social media (or post cards, or magazines, or discord channels.) All humans, even the most ‘grrr, I hate humans’ sort of introvert crave community on some level. We are social beasts, even if it’s just someone to hate humans with. You will never love everyone in your community, we’re all irritatingly fallible humans, many with somewhat questionable social skills, but that’s the nature of the beast, and ideally when we all put on our grownup pants, we manage to at least get along. (This is not a post about abusive or toxic members of the community, that’s a whole different conversation.)

Some communities come together very naturally in the SCA context. Fighters and fencers need each other to practice. Pell work is all fine and good, but you don’t get very far without other people. Missile weapon folks, they have a lot more opportunity to work alone, but not very many people have the luxury of enough space (or legality) to be able to throw axes or shoot arrows in their backyard, so by and large, they gather where the targets are.

A&S can, and almost often is, done wholly alone, hidden away at home. Workshops and floor looms don’t travel well. Detailed fussy work, be it with brush and pigments or needle and thread require good light, concentration and a lack of the table getting knocked accidentally. Some folks can, and do, bring bits and pieces to work on with others. Craft days, or at events, but 90% of it happens at home. Often just with your own thoughts of ‘well this is crap’, and ‘wtf? That is totally not what the instructions said would happen’. We are, by and large, solitary creatures.. and often with the social skills that come from being solitary creatures. (I get excited and overshare and forget that shutting the heck up is totally a thing I can do. I’m not /good/ at it, but I can do it. Please do remind me as necessary. XD)

And then we all come together… at a display, or competition or class filled weekend, University, schola.. however one wishes to phrase it. Walking into one of those in full swing is like hitting a wall of creative energy.. edged with nerves as often as not. Even the most gentle of judging is still challenging for entrants and judges alike, and if it’s for something big.. war points, championships, pentathlons.. then there’s even more nerves. New teachers (and some experienced teachers) do not teach because it comes naturally, but because they love to share, and are utterly faking it when they look calm and relaxed in front of a group of people.

Probably the best example of this is walking into the A&S display at Pennsic. (Middle weekend, Sunday afternoon! Come visit!) Artisans from everywhere have brought what they’ve been working on, and most of them are there to chat about their work. Some of it is mind blowing in terms of skill and research and depth. Some of it is a tentative beginner foray into something, and you look at the artisan and see a mix of pride at their new skill and a hint of terror that someone is going to be that ‘mean judge of legend’ and harsh on their beginner work. There’s people asking questions and explaining what they’ve done, yet again. There’s the display you can barely get near and the one that most people barely glance at, either because it’s not colourful, or they’re the last on the row.

And I love it. I love every last bit of it. I love the ones bringing the lumpy spinning that they fought tooth and nail to get, and I love the ones who have giant display boards that are the culmination of a decade of research into one specific thing. I love the ones that I know nothing about, but get to watch someone light up with the same passion towards their craft as I do about bits of string. I love chatting with people, I love doing A&S consults when the EK folks will have me. (Have questions about how to improve? Be it your display, your work, your documentation, or how to quell some of the terror of competition.. sign up for a consult! Totally voluntary, it’s usually next to the registration table.)

Phew, I’m not sure where I was going with this, beyond how much I appreciate the A&S community. It’s not perfect, we’ve got challenges and toxic trolls too, but big picture, thank you. ❤

And if you got this far, here’s my elderly calico Dalla in a sunbeam.

A few comments and questions I’ve had over the years made me think that some comments on /how/ I approach research might be valuable. I’m discussing research in an SCA context, and I am by no means an expert. These rabbit holes have many paths, and how my brain jumps from info to info might not be how your brain works. Comments and suggestions are very welcome here, and if you are coming up with interesting information.. keep going on what you’re doing! Also, research is a topic without a lot of visuals and a lot of words. I promise a cute cat photo at the end.

A few comments and caveats to start with. I have the amazing luxury of having an academic library at my fingertips. It doesn’t have everything by any stretch, no one library has everything, but I have a great many scientific journals in easy online access. I know I’m lucky. If you graduated from a university, you may still have alumni access to some degree. I can only speak to University of Guelph, but alumni here have some access still. Otherwise, make some friends. 🙂

The other main point I want to make is the reality that google coughs up all sorts of crap, most of it irrelevant, or non-helpful. (looking at you, pintrest). There’s no magic to making it just give you relevant information. There’s no secret search engine that only gives you the good stuff. (If you’ve found it, please let me know. Also, I think you’ve met an AI.) The vast majority of research is stubbornly clicking links and digging through complete irrelevancies until you find something useful. This is not you being bad at google, it’s like that for everyone.

Basic research starts with throwing what seems like a likely search term at google. (Say ‘medieval sheep breeds’ or ‘medieval weave sizing’). You then get back a whole list of stuff. Some of it is relevant. Sometimes you hit a jackpot, and most of it is relevant. (Medieval sheep breeds gives plenty of relevant links). Usually you get a pile of dreck that you have to go digging into. This is the point where wikipedia is actually sometimes useful, stop by for alternative terms, and their reference list. When I searched for Medieval weave sizing, what I got back shows me that what I mean (the sizing that is effectively goop to coat your warp to tame fuzzies and make it stronger) is not that I get from that search term. Google thinks I mean either the size of cloth, or the size of threads within. Both interesting, but not what I was looking for! Sometimes, that results in a moment (or day, or weeks) down new rabbit holes of ‘ooh, thread sizes? Awesome. I should make a note of these places for when I’m looking for thread size’. That’s when you save links, however works for you. (Gdocs, reference manager (I use Zotero), post it notes, write it on the walls, you do you.) Then, you try a new search term, because that clearly didn’t work. Try again! ‘Medieval warp sizing’ Voila! Now we’ve got some weavers discussing sizing for their warps.

This is when the reading starts. Open them all up. Read them all, or at least skim them all. Some of them you’ll think ‘damn, I am pretty sure they made all this up’, and you close those tabs. Some of them, you’ll read and think ‘hunh, that’s neat.’ and possibly make some notes, probably just appreciate the info and close those tabs. When the stars align, you find a page that sounds reasonable, made MORE reasonable by having references. Sometimes those are links to other pages. Sometimes it’s mention of books, or journals, or articles. See a book mentioned? Google it. See an article or journal mentioned? Google it. Follow the links (lament dead links that sounded so very very promising. Sometimes you can win with wayback machine, but not always). See where they go. It may be to an article that evokes the ‘Well yeah.. that’s a hard nope!’, it might be to a gem.

So you’ve found a reference to a book or journal that isn’t easily accessible. Sometimes, google books shows you just enough of the book in question to get the section you need. Sometimes, worldcat (world wide library catalog) shows that it’s in a library that you can interlibrary loan from. Sometimes, you start asking your friends who can get you a book or a journal article. (or even a scan of a few pages. Scanning a whole book is Bad under copyright. Scanning a few pages is fine.) Sometimes you just write it down for now, and hope you bump into it eventually. Some books/articles just are out of reach, and it sucks, and it happens.

The other awesome avenue for digging up research jumping off points is taking classes and letting someone else help the sifting. Check out their reference page, go digging in there yourself and see what you find. Maybe you have a different interpretation of that picture, or that phrase, or that article. Maybe they have a link to something with a link to something that is exactly what you were hoping to find out of that book that you couldn’t get ahold of.

Is this deep rigorous experimental archeology that will get you published? No. However, I’m expecting that anyone at that stage of the research game is laughing right now, and trying to come up with a polite way to call me a hack. This is starting points, jumping off, finding ways to add a bit more historical context to your documentation, or just to your curiosity. Research isn’t super scary, or some sort of magic skill. It’s mostly a lot of ‘ooh, what’s THAT’ and tenacity.

Alright, I did promise a cute cat photo if you made it this far. These are Dalla’s thoughts on researching anything that isn’t her food dish. Go forth and google!