Mary Ostler

For the first 10 years or so in the SCA I considered myself extremely late period English. It was kind of working for me. Due to me… being me, I ended up wearing almost exclusively Men’s clothing. Give me a dress even mid calf level, and I will find a way of face planting within minutes of putting it on. I choose a more cavalier style of dress so I could have a big wide brimmed hat (sun is evil). I knew who I was, where I lived, who lived with me, what we did (or easier what we wouldn’t do) for money. I had the whole persona in my head down to very small details (even if I chose to not play according to them).

In the last year or so, I have started getting more interested in Near Eastern (Turkish?) persona stuff.  Yet there are still things that I am finding difficult… so a love/hate list is in order.

Love

1., I love the Turkish clothing. I get to wear pants (shalvar), and the gomlek’s hem (chemise) is low enough to look feminine yet high enough I don’t hurt myself. I over heat VERY easily, so I love the Chirka (vest) lots of ventilation at the chest and no sleeves.

2., Bright Colors, Clashing Colors, HUGE patterns… Awesome.

3., Coffee – Do I need to say why?

4., Automata – OK so that’s a bit more Persian… it still satisfies my gadgetry lust.

5., Floor lathes – I love wood turning, and I have yet to dabble in this style.  Plans are in place.

6., The multitude of science related stuff that poured out of Persia, and turkey, and Greece is fascinating.

DisLike

1., No Hats with brims (women). This could end up the deal breaker for me. I burn just thinking of the sun. I have pasty white skin, light colored eyes, freckles everywhere, and have lightish redi-brown hair. The sun is my enemy. I find it baffling that in an area that experiences the amount of sunlight that the Near East does…. Brimmed hats are not around. I have taken to wearing a mongol cap with a huge fur brim wedged well into the eyelid area to try to filter out some of the sun…. It really is killing me.

2., Little furniture can be documented on anything other than palace furniture. I love working with  wood. I find the limits of lower/middle class stuff I can build kind of depressing.

3., Language – I am semi-fluent in English… much less so in French. That’s were all my language skill ends (other than asking for the Canadian embassy in multiple languages). Much of the research I have done is through google translate. Not a very handy method of research, and I often wonder at how good the translation is.

4., Familiarity -  I know very little about the history of the region. I grew up with English history, and what little was said about the near east had gone in one ear and out the other. I know so little that when I go to try to find basic information on the region I get completely flummoxed by the names, terms…etc.

I really want to start working on my persona, but am somewhat overwhelmed in a general sense. Specific crafts and skills I can focus on…. but the bigger picture just a blurry mess at the moment.

Any thoughts? Suggestions on books, websites to help me out?

I have sort of chose late period Turkey as it seemed a little more approachable at the moment… but I am not married to it yet either.

Help!

I have an idea…. Its a backpack sized period encampment. Something small enough I could in theory lug onto the BC ferries as a walk on passenger thus saving me stupid amounts of money.

so…

In my seemingly never ending need to build different kinds of tents, I bring you the 15th century Timur Disked Bell.

all four images from “Felt Tents & Pavillions”

Small short center pole tents with huge amounts of arabesque designs elements.

In all the pictures I can find of these tents they all have a short ~1′ tall wall with alternating angled color strips. In the text of the book, the author talks about alternating red/white/blue/white on all of the white tents, with the arabesque predominately  blue. I have tried doing a search for colored versions of these photos, but so far my google-fu has let me down.

This image has the disked bell opened up like a sunshade. I would love to be able to make the tent function in this manner two. The one stumbling block I can see with it is the uber long guide ropes that would be needed to use it in this fashion. I could have a whole series of wall poles so I could decrease the angle…. but that takes away from the lightweight carry on-ness of this tent.

I also like the color contrast from inside to outside. Not sure if this is just an artists touch or indication of  an inner lining. I am taking it as an inner lining, and seeing if I can make a light weight cotton broadcloth lining. I think an inner red or blue lining would be amazing, especially if I add the arabesque to the inside too.

That “Felt Tent and Pavilion” book is amazing. It even has an image of a 15th century tent decoration panel. I believe this is a bit more ambitious than I plan to do, but it give you an idea of how crazy awesome some of those tents actually where.

I have a few other things I have to get to first, but I really would love to have at least the outer done in time for ban Tanist Kate & Tanist Alden’s step up.

Nuts…Yes?

My fingers feel like the are going to snap like a twig, but I managed to finish the rug cartoon in the last week.

Thats it…

The project has been at a bit of a stand still as off late. The main hold up was the loom. I have been pulling out my hair trying to find either an image or a decent description of a near eastern rug loom in period. The closest I could find were a few images from the 1800’s in the V&A.

I had originally decided to make a tabriz loom for the carpet. Its a style that allows you to spool the rug around to the back side of the loom. This allows you to make a carpet just shy of double the front side of the loom. This one seems to be the most common in modern pictures of rug looms. Yet the image above shows a loom that has the warps attached to a set of rollers. This allows for the making of rugs of almost unlimited lengths.

So yesterday while doing a weekly troll of the local Craiglist I found someone selling a Leclerc Tissrat Tapestry loom for a decent price. Tapestry looms come up rarely, and this is one of the nicest I have seen. I made a trip out to the deepest darkest depths of Surrey to check out the loom. It came home with me.

Its big enough to fill a goodly portion of my bedroom. Score.

So I have the loom, now on to deciding on the wool I will need.

I heart the V&A museum. They not only have a fantastic collection… they have taken the time to actually analyse what their carpets where made of in great details, and then added that data to the web entries. I gathered all the carpets they have listings for pre-1600 and made a database to make it easier to decipher.

V&A pre-1600 Carpet material Database

I also found a reference to having colored warp threads on some carpets  that denoted where the flat weave edge should begin. I think I will use this method to not only show where to do the flat weave, but to also show where the borders should run.

** Next task…. Figure out exactly what kind of wool I need to buy for the warp threads. This is the kind of textile stuff I start to get confused with.

At War has come and gone again this year, and I am sad to think its another 52 weeks til the next time Tir Righ wipes the floor with the Avacalians. I was happy to be included in the Kingdom of Drachenwald’s Encampment. In honor of Queen Caoimhe’s attendance at our little war I decided to make a silk standard of the Drachenwalds Ensign.

I just realized while writing this post that I had put the ensign upside down…. Ack. Drachenwald in distress… OMG.

I was happy to say the queen didn’t notice, and seemed to like the standard.