(Mom and I in respective early period wear – I've got on new amber/jet/silver necklace, new Kentish brooches from Raymond's Quiet Press, and my new standard brooch-closed tunic that I finished for Pennsic. A full-length pic will be in the Current Garb Photo Album soon, and I'll discuss the gown more later.)
The demo yesterday went really well, I thought. It was funny to see Oldenfeldians in garb, since I see them so much outside of events. (Entirely my own fault, since their events always seem to be scheduled opposite Meridian events that I am going to. That's happening AGAIN for MGT. Maddening.)
It was on Landis Green, which is FSU's version of the classic university quadrangle, framed by (mostly) Collegiate Gothic Revival brick buildings, 5-7 stories high. Other student groups were doing things like giving away free ice cream and proselytizing, or offering games, etc. Lots of cute freshman kids, many of whom seemed to have gotten a memo about sundresses.
We presented lots of rapier – I had no idea the local swishy folks were so strong here – and plenty of heavy. Enough of the Ensemble showed up to do four part harmony on most things, and surprisingly I ended up running the group when Master Octavio had to step away and do Baron-type talking. Gabrielle threw a couple of "well, I always liked this song" at me, and I did okay with the sight reading – fortunately you have to be fairly close to a recorder consort to hear it when it's outside. We also sang – and nobody looked like they regretted leaving their rotten tomatoes in the car. I got a couple of 'very nice's about my soprano parts…though I was quite hoarse by the end of the evening. Stamina, probably. Not enough lifetimes!
I did some chatting up of adorable freshmen, and there was a teeny bit of dancing to Tourdion – Eoin danced with Mairie Ceilidh while we sang it. It felt very weird to be doing a demo without a loom. But…
Grainne and I have made nefarious plans to attack her virgin warp-weighted loom with some string, now that I've played with one under Thora Sharptooth's care, and I'm really excited about that. We fooled around with my string skirt, too, since it rides around in my basket, so I was able to show her the basic warp structure that we're working towards.
Today I go back up to Bainbridge to continue woodworking projects, staying overnight (since some laminating has to dry). I did finish cutting out the six tunics yesterday. Two of which used the Early Rus pattern I was shown at Pennsic. I really like the potential of that fit for big guys – the Bocksten tunic shape that I use for me doesn't really do well for chest and tummy girths that are so much bigger than shoulders. A bit of machine sewing for the rough assembly, and it's back to handsewing.