8/9/12 - Irish night at the Open Shop

We started out with barley porridge, asparagus in rice brought by Deirdre and spicy pears in wine sauce made by Gunna and Evie.  (Pears in spicy wine sauce?)  Yummy food!  Jacki and Maelgwyn spent some time geeking out over Y Gododdin and parchment and letters from St. Patrick and other cool discussion topics, but then we all got to work.

First-time visitor Seanan (Shaw-non?) already has his armour together, so he helped out with war shield painting and joined in on the pell-work session later in the evening.

Grain'e made custom patterns for her vambraces and I cut them out for her out of roughly 6 oz. oil tanned leather.  (Note:  Grain'e made a donation to the shop fund for the leather and aluminum.  Yeah!)  These would be way too light if we weren't adding some serious aluminum splints to them.  We patterned and cut out some .125" thick 6061 T6 aluminum splints which will make these plenty rigid enough for spearwork.  Speaking of spearwork, Grain'e came out and worked with the spear while the rest of us were beating on the pell.  Seanan, Grain'e, St. Patrick ...was it Irish night and somebody forgot to tell me?

Dierdre (She's Norse-Irish, so that's...not really different at all)  had recently made some great Mongol-style fighting pants for Wolf and also a nice white under-tunic.  She helped a lot with the shield painting, trained at the pell, and then did some more shield painting.

 

But Wolf is a Mongol who would never ever have even visited Ireland!  He worked on stuffing the channels in his helm liner, did some pell work, and may have even snuck in some shield painting when I wasn't looking.  In the background Ben is working on his own helm liner, which is nearly finished.  Ben also come outside for pell work.

Wyllow mac Muiredaig is a Scot.  A descendant of the Dal Riada.  Who were basically an Irish tribe that settled in Caledonia and forgot to go home.  She worked on weaving hand-spun wool to make a test piece for experimenting with fulling methods/recipes, and helped others with their projects.

Jacki carded wool and spun some yarn while Evie watched and rested up from her cooking efforts.  In the background Belle was on her computer researching 12th century French music for her upcoming presentation at Laurel's Prize Tourney.

Gunna browsed through one of Wyllow's books on Roman cooking.  Will she get hooked and start putting garum in everything?  Only time will tell...

Frosti came out to visit with folks, do a little shield paining, enjoy some good food, and discuss next steps for his armour plan.  And that was enough for one night!

Open Shop 6/28/2012

 This was Linden's first visit to Open Shop night, and she made an awesome linen tunic for her son.  In the foreground Colin is working on his new gorget.

 Speaking of gorget's, here is the start of a new fencing gorget that I am tooling for Wyllow so that she can dye using authentic medieval techniques.  Some indigo may be harmed in this process.

 Gunna, Diedre, Nora and Evie all pursue various projects in the kitchen.

 Frosti contemplates whether his hardened-leather half gauntlet will protect his thumb.

 Josh contemplates whether he can cut out his leather gorget without cutting his thumb.  He is using a hook knife that makes leather cutting easy as long as it is REALLY sharp.  They seem to get dull quickly and need frequent blade changes, but they work great until then.

 Evie says "Come to Open Shop...we have cookies!"

 Josh holds up several in-progress projects while sitting next to my helm (in-progress since 2009).  Dishing knee and elbow cops out of aluminum can be tiring and hot work this time of year, so many of the guys like to alternate dishing with leather work or some other indoor activity.

 Speaking of indoor activities, Belle found time for some reading while, in the background, Wyllow and Linden discuss dress patterns and Jenna plays in the livingroom.

Colin bevels the edges of his soon-to-be new gorget while Ben and Wolf look on.  Josh continues to cut his gorget out of the side of leather.

Food!

Open shop on 6/7/2012 started off delicious and just got better from there.

Wyllow made beef rolls and a special Roman juniper pepper sauce with de frutum.  She made two varieties:  with and without mustard.  Deidre also brought a middle-eastern chick-pea dish to share.

I made savory Roman turnips with fish sauce and hing.

Willow also made  African honey apples from another Apicius recipe.

 Gunna made savory toasted cheese (Cheese Goo!) to serve in bread bowls.

 Grain'e made some delicious beer bread.

 Link and Josh worked on knee cops and half gauntlets, while their friend (name forgotten, sorry!) fixed up some old armour pieces.

 Julia consulted with Wyllow on personna development and seems to be headed in a Varangian/Rus/Byzantine direction.  Here are some useful links for would-be Varangians:

http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=46922

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~chrisandpeter/limb_defences/limb_defences.htm 

 Deidra showed us her new underdress and made progress on her helm.

 Evie and Gunna relaxed after much cheese-gooing.

 Wolf finished lacing his body armour.  Now he just needs straps.

And Abby made progress on her gorget!

Open Shop 5-31-2012

 Nora sews her new dress

 Wyllow helps Julia select a time and place for which to dress.

 Abby lays out her gorget plates, marks and punches holes in the leather, and rivets the plates in.

 Frosti cuts out a leather half-gauntlet using my one-piece pattern.

 Link and Josh and Daniel and Frosti all finished their armour plans, so they can start marking out elbow and knee cops on sheet aluminum 5052 alloy pieces.  This stuff is dirt cheap at $1/pound at Metals4U in Pflugerville.  All of the aluminum will be hidden under sleeves or pants when the armour is complete.

 Ben lays out the fabric for his coat of plates while Toner supervises.

 Daniel learns to cut aluminum on a throatless shear.  (Not a Beverley shear but a cheap Chinese imitation.)

 Gunna and Evie practice period cooking.  Come over to Open Shop night...we have cookies!

Link, Daniel, Josh, Ben and Frosti show how much they got cut out tonight.  Wolf has been busily lacing his lamellar.

 Then everyone else gets into the picture too.  At this point Belle had left to take Nora home and Julia had left also.  Counting them and counting the guy (me) taking the picture we had 15 people at Open Shop night.  A new record!

I even found a few minutes to work on the cheek-plate hinges for my helm.  My son took the picture and my wife is "helping" behind me.  Isn't it great to have a supportive family who takes you seriously?  :)

Period food night

 Wyllow prepared 4 game hens using/adapting a Roman recipe for roast hens in "green sauce".  She told me many more details about ingredients and methods and adaptations for missing ingredients like green nard, but what I remember is that they tasted exotic and delicious.

And Wyllow served up the hens elegantly on a platter.

 Deidre brought a middle-eastern dish of rice and lentils and...other things.  What things?  You'll have to ask her.

Belle and her friend Josh worked on a Rube Goldberg device for physics class, resulting in intermittent crashing sounds and exclamations throughout the evening.

In other news, Wolf finished shaping his lamellar scales so we worked out a lacing pattern/plan and he is busily assembling them.  Abby rounded the corners of all the metal bits for her brigandine gorget and we discussed design ideas for the remaining parts.  Gunna warped her loom with blue thread for a new project. Khutulun brought her stage-armour elbows and knees over and we worked together to dish the last elbow, planish all of them and drill holes for strapping/attaching them.  Deidre peened more rivits in her Valsgarde 6 helm.

Sage came over with his dad and little brother.  All seemed fascinated with what we do so we will see how many of his family decide to get involved.  Sage seems inclined towards 15th cent. Italian renaisance for clothing and armour.  It would be great to see someone do boffer in a hardened leather King Renee suit...and then he could easily upgrade it for adult combat in about 3 years.

And that was enough for one night!