I went to RUM last weekend – that’s Royal University of Meridies, held in Pulaski, TN this year.

The trip coincided with a championship swim meet trip of my husband’s, so we drove up together, I dropped him off in Nashville, and then went off to play with Maudey for the weekend.

I stayed with her and her family in a house straight out of Brothers Grimm, and Friday Mistress Una joined us for a trip to Sir’s Fabrics.  In Fayetteville.  Linen for $2/yard!  Here’s my loot:

A good deal of that is Not For Me.  All blue, purpley-blue, red, green, and a good deal of the white is destined for Guy’s Garb.  And the fancy trim.  The green/gold print is meant for hall decorations for Daggers & Hemlock: Medici Murder. 

I will admit to those several pieces of rusty silk, and the eggplant velvet is destined for my late-period Flemish sleeves.  Also that white piece on the upper left is mine…I couldn’t resist the weave structure, and the multi-coloredness of it, yet it’s still ‘white’ overall.  I’ll take it to mundane Weaver’s Guild on Saturday and try to find out what structure it is.  I expect it will probably be some sort of fitted 14thc dress – just because that will be beautiful on me, not because it makes any sort of theatrical/historic sense.  When I know what the structure is, I’ll be able to place it better – maybe it could be a bliaut sort of thing.  We’ll discuss that later.

I helped Maudey with the last dash of sewing RUM robes – those would be the academic robes and hoods worn by the Dean and helpers.  They’re made out of raw silk, which I’d never worked with before.  I don’t have a lot of experience with silk, because my mother’s allergic to it, but it was interesting to be pawing through tables of fabric and Maudey/Una would pipe up – “here’s some silk!”  Discussions about dyeing bad colorations with Rit, just to see how the dye would separate and hopefully improve the color choices.

I am hoping the rusty silk above will be an Indian something, to go with a choli.  But that will obviously have to wait for next summer.

I wore my new Roman to RUM, and stupidly didn’t have anyone take my picture.  So this is what’s wrong with it, and I’ll get a picture taken later.

I have to do some tweaking to the shoulders of the tunica, so they will stay on my shoulders, but I think I understand how, and it won’t take very long.  Also I need to acquire a couple of brooches for palla anchoring – I borrowed one from Maudey (the brooch is in your basket, M, if you haven’t looked there yet) and figured out something that worked, but I’ve decided it really needs two.  I’m making a wool girdle in Apprentice Green right now – cardweaving on a borrowed inkle loom.  I used green grosgrain ribbon (of course polyester) for my girdle at RUM, and the darn thing was much too slippery.  This wool is like velcro – it’ll hold in place much better.

I hadn’t tried an inkle loom yet, and they’re neat contraptions.  This is a pretty big one, borrowed from Gabrielle, and for those unfamiliar – can you see it’s a big loop?  Warping took about two hours…at least the duration of Batman 4 on television Now With Fewer Commercials (Daan was napping).  I wove for about four hours coming home, and have been doing a bit every night after supper during Star Trek.  You can see I have less than a yard to go.  I’m going to take this to the weaving guild meeting too.

I’m doing this now because (1) my Roman that I’m going to wear at Coronation must have a girdle that works (2) I want to practice my tabletweaving on a long piece before I start the trim for HH Gwen’s dress, and (3) Maudey recommends you ‘sand’ your new wood cards by using them to make something else before a silk project.

However, I really need to get the coronation trim done ASAP, so I’m pushing to finish this girdle by the end of the weekend.