Midwinter Feast was the first whole weekend event my family took part. I was, at first, quite nervous how we would manage the whole weekend, with 6 month old in medieval garb. But at the end, everything went great and we fully enjoyed ourselves! Thanks also to the event organizers for good work! The event was full of small children, which was nice from our point of view. Our little son behaved very well and every now and then, especially while he was taking a nap, me and my husband could enjoy the archery and Nordic 1000 events.

Hurray also to Aarnimetsä’s new Laurel Mistress Uta!  I have had the priviledge to take part in her class about childrens wear in Aarnimetsä academy 2010. Now utilising her teachings and good points regarding what to do and not to do, I am heading on with the challenge on clothing my son through the forth coming years.

I am also excited: after attending two sca events, my husband is beginning to warm up to the idea of getting longbows for us! This might become a nice hobby for the whole family, as our son grows a little. My husband got also interested in SCA fighting while watching the best of Nordic fighters in the last tournament of Nordic 1000. This however might stretch our budget little too far at the moment, since it takes a bit of funds to get the gear. maybe later, maybe later…

Our little boy was born in 24.7.2011. So a lot of medieval childrenswear projects to be done.

This newcomer for de Derby family has already been introduced to the medieval era, by visiting Hämeenlinna medieval market. He really seemed to enjoy himself in there, since he slept most of the time… even a canon fired nearby didn’t wake him up.

As I am planning for our whole family to take part in sca event this winter, I have already begun to make some clothing for him as well. In pictures below there are linen coif, linen tunic and green woollen jacket. The jacket is still missing cloth buttons and I will alter the neckline by removing the collar and just having round neckline.

also a picture of some nalebound “mittens” and hat for the little one.

In April my husband and I visited London and its great museums: London city museum and British museum. I really liked both. London city museum has a nice medieval exhibition and in British museum one can find small exhibition about medieval (1200-1600)  and little bigger one about viking times (500-1100).

I was very glad one could take pictures in these museums. You can find my pictures in here: http://hahtuva.kuvat.fi

So many things happening and so little energy afterwards to write it all down…

Anyway here it goes a very long post…

After the wedding, we (me, my husband, and two of my cousins) had a day trip to Stockholm, Sweden. The aim of the trip was to get overdosed by the medieval! First the Medeltidsmuseet and after that the viking and medieval collections of Historiska museet. And is that was not enough, to visit on our way back home, at Turku Finland, the Aboa Vetus’ medieval exhibitions, including the current “medieval bling bling” exhibition. This was my first trip to all these 3 museums.

Medeltidsmuseet had a nice basic collection and a nice museum shop. I think we over spend a little in the shop; several new books on cooking, art and games instructions, veil pins, pewter buttons, lace points etc…  but hey, in the end, it was worth it…

With Historska museet, I was excited about the viking collections that are very very fine and quite large. I could have spend a lot more time looking through this collection, but we were running out of time, so we had to rush little at the end to see what the museum had to offer on medieval. This part was a small disappointment to me in clothing and accessory wise. There were mostly church related capes and such. But I did admire the details of furniture, statues and nice chess set pieces. The museum shop, was also little disappointing, mostly just having cheapish things for “regular” tourist. They did have nice reproduction of viking glass game set, but that was a lot over my budget for this trip.

Aboa Vetus in Turku, I have for some strange reason been able to “avoid”, even though I have visited Turku many times. The base exhibition was very informative and cute. Little similar with construction and the feel of the place as Medeltidsmuseet. I had high expectations for the bling bling exhibition, but even though it had nice basic items, was little let down by it. I have to admit I had hoped to see something truly bling bling and new revelation information about accessorising in medieval time. Very little information was also given on the objects themselves… Anyway here is a picture of a nice cuttings seams in shoe from the exhibition.

I hope I am not sounding too negative about what we saw on the trip. On the contrary, we did see nice things and some new things, and the trip was well worth it.

Next task: In spring London and the City museums medieval exhibition. Unfortunately the textile collection of V&A is moving to another location, so I will not be able too see it. Shame…

Also I took part in Aarnimetsä academy in autumn. For this occasion I made a new dress, in lovely pinkish orange wool with half linen lining. I had to fiddle around with the sleeves a bit, but even though they came to be quite tight, the dress was still ok wearable. Here are some pictures of the pewter buttons, lucet cord of silk/wool mix, and the process of stretching the holes for the cord. I have no pictures at the moment of me wearing the dress and at the moment it will be challenge to take pictures, since the dress is even tighter than in autumn, since I am currently pregnant…

This was my first medieval society weekend event. I took part in many interesting lectures on subjects like embroidery and children’s clothing. Also I was privileged to see Elina from Neulakko to get her recognition and being elevated to the Order of the Laurel. I have been following her blog for ages, and I think she truly deserved this recognition. Very beautiful and heart warming occasion indeed. This weekend I also had some, surprising for me, recognition! In the academy there was Arts and Science tournament. This tournament had top be participated in pairs, one would take part in art and science competition and other to fight in combat tournament. I thought, as an artisan, it would be interesting to take part and get to see how my hands work would manage to compete against the other great artisans in our Kingdom and in Aarnimetsä. I paired with a fellow from Tammilinna, Tuomas Tharo, in the tourney.  We did have very tough competitors against us, but we had a determination to do well. I cheered Tuomas in the combat and he came second! Great, good fight from him! For my part in the A&S competition, I entered the brocaded belt I made for my wedding dress, along with a relevant documentation about the technique used and the period inspirations I had for it. It was so exciting to see, how the little voting pearls where appearing at the different peoples entries during the competition day. Excitement, until the very last moment…. And at the end: I won!!! By one pearl…. I would have never expected to win in my first ever event and competition… So humbling, too get appreciation in such way. Heart full of thank you to all those who voted for me, who ever you are… So as a final result we won the whole tournament with Tuomas.

And at the end here are some more pics from the making of the wedding; shoes, my garters, little alms pouch, painting the long wall hangings etc…

Hahtuva is back… I am sorry it has taken so long. I have been working on going through the numerous pics we got from our wedding photographer. But finally I managed to edit some pics from our wedding, for you to see.

We can not thank enough of all people involved in helping us to realize this wedding. Also we want to thank all our guests for making our day, especially the ones going through all the trouble getting dressed in period.  The day was absolutely perfect and the atmosphere was amazing. Music, dancing, some dueling, bride getting abducted, the abductor been punished by whipping, fire show in the starry autumn night… We also highly recommend “Tammilinnan laulajat” -choir, they are brilliant! Thanks!

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Long time since I’ve updated my project process. This doesn’t mean that nothing has happened. On the contrary, I have been working a lot on the project: wedding.

I have been weaving, making patterns for costumes, sewing protos, making shoes and working on other small leather artifacts. I have finished the green brocade I posted earlier about. I have also weaved two wide belts for my mother and my mother-in-law to be. My current weaving project is pink brocade. I will post pictures as soon as possible….

I have been ordering shoes, fabrics and pewter items around the world, but wedding preparations have also taken us to travel. Today I have been tired after yesterdays trip to Tallinn, Estonia. Me and  my fiancé took early ship from Helsinki and spend the day in Tallinn running from shop to another in search for materials for the wedding. We got embroidery threads, beads and silk-like ribbons from craft wholesale shop Karnaluks, 100 meters of linens from LinenWorld and collected pre-ordered plates and mugs from ceramics shop Fortuuna. Since we where lucky in our trip and all we found all we needed quickly, we treated ourselves with nice medieval dinner in Olde Hansa.

Preparing medieval wedding is not just making crafts, its also planting flowers. I am not a green finger by any means, but today I have, planted some humulus, ie hop vine. I hope I can tackle plant pests this summer and keep the vine looking nice. It would be nice wedding decoration if I succeed. I am all the time thinking about all the sewing and embroidery I still need to do, but from now on I have to also keep in mind: water the humulus and remember to spray with pesticide.

My projects at the moment are headed towards my wedding next summer. The list of crafts to do is a mile long, since I have to wardrobe the wedding party of 6 people. Plus I have to host few craft weekends during the spring for the quests who wish to make medieval costumes for them selves.

I will try and update the progress of my crafts here, but I think will not tell what they all are for or for whom. This is because I like to try and keep some element of surprise to my wedding guests of whats to come.

This first project is my tablet weaving project no. 1. This is a brocade pattern no. 15 from Anna Neuper’s Modelbuch by Nancy Spies. This is my very first attempt at brocade technique and since I have plenty of wool yarns I decided to use wool instead of getting metallic one for this first attemt. I think the pattern looks nice even with wool.

This second project is German brickstitch embroidery project. People who are familiar with medieval brickstitching, might gues what it will be, but lets keep the mystery for others to figure out. Again I’m using my wool yarns for this project instead of silk.

Fellow or friend, ye be welcome.

Here shall you find me, Olive, chattering about my medieval life and crafts.