Thoughts of the Lady in the Tower

2004-04-19 - 12:04 p.m.

My weekend

Next weekend is Crown, so Amalia and I spent the weekend working on a cote for her to wear under the baronial sideless. We used the method that Anezka taught me, and I think it's going well. I'm going back over tonight to put the sleeves on, then it's just the gores and the hem (EASY stuff).

Wow it looks so nice on her. The baronial sideless surcoat is red and white, and we were struggling to decide what color she should make the cote. She choose black (since the prior baroness had red and she did NOT want to look like that . . . but there are some major body shape differences, too), and it is STUNNING.

Eventually, there will be pictures on the web SOMEWHERE. The web minister and MOAS want to start showing off projects on the web page, so hopefully they'll be able to get that going soon. I've got a CD to burn for them of both my and Richard's stuff once they settle on a format.

Richard's weekend

Richard painted our sections of the baronial wall. He's hoping that with two finished sections, people will want to finish THEIR sections; we had ONE attendee at the wall event yesterday, other than the four of us. Richard and I were there the whole weekend, and Amalia worked on her dress, not the wall.

Jonthas's casting experiment

For that matter, I think Jonthas worked on tokens to give as largess for Crown Tourney instead of on the wall. That left Richard and Jim (newcomer) to work on the wall.

Jonthas cast small cross-botony (one of Dun Carraig's symbologies) round tokens. Remember when you were a kid and you sprinkled little plastic beads into a wire frame and melted them into a stained glass design? He had a bunch of red beads like that, and melted them into the depressed sections around the cross. Came out looking REALLY nice.

Crown Tourney plans

They're planning to have a table of munchies for largess, and give the cast tokens to the consorts of the fighters he goes against during the tourney. Very spiff.

I need to rehem my red cote so that it won't be too long for me to effectively serve as Lady in Waiting.

And we have a series of baldrics that were made out of white fabric and serged with red thread. Ugh. I need to cover the serged edges with red bias tape (looks VERY spiff), but the bias tape I ordered hasn't arrived yet. Grrr.

Rant on use of baronial arms

Cuan (current king) asked people to come and participate in our Crown Tourney so it wouldn't be the same 7 people fighting. Jonthas (who doesn't have a chance in hell of winning) decided to answer the summons.

He's gotten some flak from Some People about using the baronial arms while fighting in Crown Tourney.

First off, in terms of identity, the Baron is the Barony. They are inseparable.

Then, when Jonthas and Amalia stepped up, they ceremonially furled their personal arms. She's not even really comfortable having them hanging in their house (I told her it's HER HOUSE and it's the best way to store them).

So, he wrote to Cuan (the king) and asked his opinion (since Jonthas is holding the barony for the king and it is Cuan's Crown Tourney). Cuan said "You are entitled to those arms; use them."

Nyah.

I think the whole thing gets me in a twist because this person has a habit of spouting off "the TRUTH" without it actually being true (or medieval, half of her etiquette rules are Victorian).

Plus there's a difference between "I think this is inappropriate" and "These people are stupid for behaving in this manner." I don't think ANYONE (but especially a peer) should spout off "these people are stupid" in a public place (ie a public journal). "These people are stupid" belongs in your living room and shouldn't go beyond there.