Category: Research

A place for ideas for the future, to collect research

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Book Review – Textiler Hausrat

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Jutta Zander-Seidel, Textiler Hausrat : Kleidung und Haustextilen in Nurnberg von 1500-1650, 1990. How do you review a book written in a language that you can’t read?  Well, I can review the pictures. I inter-library-loaned this one after seeing it referenced in several German garb articles, and my experience with it was a mixed bag.  First, if you ever get a chance to buy this one, and you have any interest in German garb, get it.  There’s frequently-excerpted illustrations shown in whole, second-tier illustrations that are sometimes hard to find, pictures of extant garments together with their ‘portraits’, and just … Continue reading Book Review – Textiler Hausrat

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Book Review – Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings

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Mercy, it’s been quite a while since I blogged what I’m reading.  Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings, copyright 1963, by Amy Kelly.  Daan brought me home a library discard copy from his school (they throw out some of the neatest things).  It has a great map in the endpaper – I don’t know if that paperback copy Amazon is selling for $16 has that. Anyway, although Eleanor (Alia-Anor, apparent original spelling, after her mother, Anor) is definitely most of the twelfth century, which is not the 14th century of my current garb construction, she is so influential, and … Continue reading Book Review – Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings

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14th century tents

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Because I’ve been sucked into A Large Gulf Wars Project involving the 14th century, and everything I’m planning for GW is somehow related, I started researching tent and pavilion construction in the 1300’s.  Here’s what I found. The Tents of History, Stephen Francis Wyley, ed.This is a list of links to a summarizing table, with references to published sources and sometimes linked pictures.  If I can figure out a more user-friendly way to compile this with embedded links and pictures I will.  Perhaps it can be a PowerPoint.  I should ask Wyley’s permission.  Many of his links have died – … Continue reading 14th century tents

Events, Research3 Comments

Back from Gatalop!

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I had a wonderful time, and took not one useful picture, except three bad twilight ones of Gefroi, getting his AoA.  (Gefroi, if you’re reading this, I’ll get those to you this week.)  I am a bad blogger. However, I know ones were taken of me, so hopefully Gail (sp?) and Alicia will share.  It was a fabulous sunny and windy day, so they should be pretty. (Though of course, I flouted the sunscreen and paid handsomely for my foolishness with a red face.  I’ve got to get in the habit of putting some on everyday, no matter what.) Staying … Continue reading Back from Gatalop!

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Book Review – Clothing Culture

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Have I mentioned before that I live at 30dN latitude?  Same latitude as Cairo, Egypt?  And that the sun is HOT? Those who saw my lobster-red back at fighter practice from a walk to the store know that we get rather an intense sunlight here.  No wonder Le Corbusier was entranced with the light on the Greek boxes built into the hillsides – and Santorini is at 36dN.  That’s like…Chattanooga, Tennesse. Anyway, Maudey told the Costume Guild after Pennsic that the book to get was Clothing Culture:Dress in Egypt in the First Millennium AD.   Amazon US doesn’t have it, though … Continue reading Book Review – Clothing Culture

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Book Review – Guns, Germs and Steel

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Guns, Germs and Steel is by Jared Diamond, originally published in 1997, revised 2003, 2005.  It won a Pulitzer Prize, and was made into a ‘Major PBS Special!’ (That last is intriguing – I wonder what a dramatization of this content would be like.) I read GGS because of Mistress Jadi’s recommendation – I’d heard about it years ago via Readerville, and took the blurb at face value: "why the peoples of certain continents succeeded in invading other continents and conquiring or displacing their peoples."  This wasn’t terribly interesting to me as a Cherokee descendant – I’ve heard quite enough … Continue reading Book Review – Guns, Germs and Steel

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Luttrell Psalter videos

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Everyone’s familiar with the Luttrell Psalter, right?  Er, um, I have to admit here that I was on passing terms with it – when mentioned in context I thought ‘oh, right, medieval manuscript’ but didn’t know any more. Well, these folks are learning it very well – they’re re-enacting it, and filming their efforts.  It’s very nice, because you learn so much when you try things.  Like in the milking the sheep (milk sheep?) film, was there a first draft of the wattle sheep corral that wasn’t high enough, as implied by the jumping sheep at the end?  It’s easy … Continue reading Luttrell Psalter videos

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Book Review – Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years

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Ann recommended this book to me when I first expressed an interest not only in spinning, but in the technology of cultures, and in learning how to do things from the ‘ground up’.  I got it just in time for Gulf Wars, and started reading it aloud to Gabrielle on the way there.  That was March. I’ve just finished Women’s Work last week, and it’s fantastic.  I’m actually glad that it’s taken me so long to get through it, because it’s just chock full of fabulous information, each little bit that just shifted my worldview.  Rather like the archaeological finds … Continue reading Book Review – Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years