Anyone who has camped (or gone to Pennsic) knows the horrors of dropping things into the latrine.  Once it falls in, that’s it.  Say “goodbye”!

I am so delighted about this wooden box of salve from Medieval Oslo; It is one little treasure that has been returned to us thanks to the archaeologists working on the Follo Train Line excavations.

(Salve box with silver foil decoration from Follo Train Line Excivations, Oslo, Norway
Drawing by author, detail of Photograph by Sara Langvik Berge, NIKU, in Alle Tiders 2016, page 6)

Carving time out of a busy day to work on my Golden Egg project is hard.  So I’ve gone outside the Medieval box and am using this year’s Tour de Fleece and Vuelta a Lana spinning groups to kick me into action.

I would like to bring attention to an interesting Norwegian manuscript, The Codex Frisianus.  This manuscript is dated to the first quarter of the 14th century.

I’ve gotten into a rut.  I have ideas of projects I’d like to be working on, but they keep stranding in the planning stages.  Think, think, think, but never DO has lead to some serious craftipation and frustration.  Life has been forcing me to take a step back and is forcing radical simplification on a more global scale.  While on reflecting on how to reduce stress, it finally dawned on me: Skill building for reenactment doesn’t only happen when working on ‘period’ projects.

I’ve been surrounded by music all my life, and was an active musician right up through college.  ...

Fast forward a few decades, and I’ve finally dipped my toe back into the folk music waters.  I’ve now attended the “Klangen før fela” gathering, and it was an absolute blast! 

Non optare sed agere: Stop wishing, start doing.

This is the other “low-threshold” project I brought to Double Wars.  I pulled together a group of food items that would be appropriate for my medieval Norwegian (Norse) persona based on foodway information I have gleaned through the years.  The theme is general ‘Norwegian’, and the sources below reflect a range of time-periods and regions.  My persona would have been familiar with these foods, and likely reveled in the abundance and variety available to her for lunching at DW. 

As I presented in my post about becoming Admiral of the High North, I have a goal of paying an annual ‘tax’ to the Crown in the form of largesse, practical items that the Crown can use or regift as they see fit.  This year I held true to my theme of Norwegian artifact-based projects, and created a score of leather coin purses, based on a find from Medieval Bryggen in Bergen, Norway.

In an earlier post , I presented the completed Pimp my Bedchamber project.  In this post I will talk a bit about the production of the ‘faux tile’ floor covering.

In the SCA we play a game where we creatively study and recreate select aspects of history.  In many ways, you get out of the game what you put in to it, and I have decided to have some fun with the Drachenwald Royal Navy.  In this post, I discuss my bid for an Admiralty.

Very enjoyable Saturday spent in Stamsund with the Lofoten Short-Tail Sheep (Korthale sau) group.  I am just getting to know the members of this group after meeting several of them at the 6th North Atlantic Native Sheep and Wool Conference in September.  Several of us were interested in continuing to have local gatherings for sheep/wool enthusiasts, and this weekend was the first.

Nothing's ever so bad that it's not good for something!

I've been having to devote time to deep-cleaning some of the back storerooms, cracking open boxes that haven’t seen the light of day since, well, FAR too long....