Rosalie Gilbert

Embroidery of a pattern from the Holkham Bible will begin soon. The pattern was likely woven into the fabric but as I do not have the means to reproduce that, embroidered will do.

It's a bit stressful as the cote itself is finished and very nice and if I mess up the decoration, I ruin a rwally lovely garment. I'm very keen to make it though, as this type of thing fits my locale and time period for re-enactment as is under-represented in reproduction clothing.

And it's stylish. 

Yesterday some brass discs arrived which I hope to polish up to a mirror finish and use to make a medieval mirror for my display.



I bought a couple as I wasn't to confident that I wasn't going to wreck them. I've got a few different polishing things, but if anyone has a recommendation for brass, I'd be keen to hear.

Most of my medieval mirrors are glass, as they extant ones are either glass or are painted in the manuscript with silver gilding or paint in the middle. A few are painted with gold gilding, which hints that they are most likely polished brass. People are often surprised to learn that the two types were both available at the same time. It's usual with technology for a new thing to supplant the old tech, but in the case of medieval mirrors, both types have a lot going for them in different ways. 

My challenge after polishing the mirror to a sufficiently high sheen will be to set it into a wooden frame of the right size. I had hopes of buying existing mirrors in wooden frames and matching the sizes, but this has proved to be a tad more optimistic on my part that I would have liked.

I've needed extra noticeboards for when I'm doing educational displays at medieval themed events which aren't re-enactment events: book signings, shows, museum talks and festivals. Meanwhile, the noticeboards with the carved flowers have been sitting idly by since the carved flowers arrived, just waiting for me to get onto it.

The noticeboard I've already made with the other design has been hanging around the lounge reminding me how much I like it, so I've been feeling guilty about not doing the new ones. 

To be fair, a week or so ago I did stain about two-thirds of them and left them to dry, failing to come back and finish the rest, so it was about time I made an effort. 

Today I stained the rest of the flowers, the back pieces and the cross bars and since there was a warm breeze blowing, they dried within half an hour, so I glued all the pieces into place. 

I'm really happy with how they look.

Today's project!

One of the little mirrors that arrived this week is now red! Well, medieval red, which is a slightly brown red. Happily Jo Sonia has a nice, appropriate colour, so instead of mixing one, I used it straight out of the tube. It's pretty close to paint made from iron oxide the traditional way, and it saved a ton of time. 

I was originally planning two coats of paint, but one seemed to give good coverage.

I gave it a coat of Renaissance Wax for protection, and that's another project I can cross off the current To Do List.

Though some mirrors are quite likely polished brass (painted gold in the centre) I do have another little red mirror from a 13th century French manuscript painted silver in the centre.

MS Ludvig XV 3, folio 78.

I have recreated this powder to use in my MEDIEVAL BATH DISPLAY and have included a step by step guide to my approach, including my expectations and how it really worked out.

The prep:

There were a number of things to think about before I started.

- Where can I get the ingredients?
- Drying the ingredients or buying them pre-powdered or using them fresh?
- Air dry or oven dry the grown ingredients?
- How much of which ingredients should I use?
- Will it actually make any real difference?
- How long will it last?
- Do any of the plants have benefits associated with them which make them particularly useful?

What you need:

Ingredients
1 oz Rock Salt
1 oz Pepper
1 oz Mint

Kitchen things
Spoon
Small scales
Bowl for mixing
Mortar and pestle for powdering

Gathering the ingredients:

Rock Salt 1 ounce. This is easy to find and purchase and is very cheap. Rock salt can be bought from any supermarket or grocery shop. Pepper 1 ounce. This can be bought from most Asian or Indian supermarkets. Gilbertus doesn't specify what type of pepper to use, but long pepper was the commonly used one in the Middle Ages. Both long pepper and black pepper were used in Roman Britain, so I've chosen long pepper for this recipe. It is a sweeter pepper than black pepper.Mint 1 ounce. Fresh leaves or dried leaves? The recipe doesn't say, but I feel like dried leaves would powder down better than fresh ones, so I am using dried mint leaves from my own herb garden.

Step by step:

1. Weigh and measure out the ingredients. In this case, the exact amounts are given, so it's just about deciding how big a finished quantity you want to make and weighing out the same weight for each of the mint, salt and pepper.

2. Using the mortar and pestle, grind the ingredients to a powder. I did these one at a time.

3. Mix them together. No other steps are needed for this.


The results:

The taste really is interesting.

This was a journey of great discovery, where I discovered: Less is more of some things and I'm surprised at the one to one to one ratio.

I expected this to work because of the mint, and expected a minty taste, when in fact, the overriding taste was the sweet pepper, which did, in fact freshen the breath. The mint was barely noticable and while the salt was very... salty, it did provide an abrasive quality which would have worked on teeth.

Overall, this recipe did work. My mouth felt refreshed for an extended amount of time, although quite peppery. The salt taste faded reasonably quickly, and the mint likewise. The end result is a positive. It is palatable, and it works.The resultant powder smells a little peppery and a little minty.

I re-read the original recipe for this and discovered that quantities and weights *were* given for this, so today, instead of spoonful ratio, I'm re-doing this with a weight ratio like I should have.

This will significantly change the quantities, especially since salt and mint vary differently with volume and weight. 

I predict the pepper will still be the ingredient that makes it work, but it will be less salty and more minty, which will be no bad thing! 

I've mad esome new sign boards for Newcastle, but also for book signing events generally.

I bought the base chalkboard from Spotlight and raided the Bunnings wood supplies for thin strips of wood and Temu for carved decorative flowers and trimmed them to fit into the gaps top and bottom. After a quick stain and glue, I painted the insides of the chalkboard and now they're ready for a final overcoat before a top sealant to weatherproof them a bit.

The end result was a bit pricey, but it was a test one for a similar one for medieval use with carved roses, and it looks pretty eye-catching, so I'm very pleased with the result!

After a slow start to the day, I did manage to get a lot of computer work done today. I like to make a stash of social media posts preplanned to advertise our activities at the next event we have coming up mid July.



I've made a heap of separate ones for all of our activities and some same-but-different ones with my Medieval Woman banner instead of the Ex Libris Living History banner.



Our activites this year are:

Friday July 11
10am - 2pm Medieval Paper Doll Making (camp)
10am - 2pm Medieval Medicine Preparation (camp)

Saturday July 12
8.00am Medical Display opens (all day in camp)
9.30am Bath & Hygiene display opens (after Grand parade all day in camp)
10.30am Surgical Arrowhead Removal (camp)
1.30pm Bath & Beauty Show & Tell (camp)
2.30pm Medieval Q&A (Ask An Expert at the Pageant wagon)

Sunday July 13
8am onwards Medical Display opens (all day in camp)
9.30am onwards Bath & Hygiene display opens (after Grand Parade all day in camp)
10am Single Women: Who were they and what did they do? (University pavilion)
10.30am Surgical Arrowhead Removal (camp)
1.30pm Bath & Beauty Show & Tell (camp)
2.25pm Sickness In The Middle Ages: More Than The Black Death (University pavilion)
2.45pm Medieval Q&A (Ask An Expert at the University pavilion)



This is a pretty decent amount of activity considering it's essentially two of us doing all of it. Michelle does the medical things, and I do the lady things. We both have someone to mind our displays while we are off doing talks in other places, and we both have an in camp formal demonstration which we host in our displays. I'm very fortunate that my helper has learned a lot about my display and is able to speak well and answer questions in my absence. 



This year, my sister and her two teens are joining us, so there will be a few extra hands. The down side of this is that because it's the first year after an extended break (and a lot has changed in the world of re-enactment in Australia and festivals) I am supplying everything the three of them need: clothes, eating utensils and a place to stay and camp. If it turns out that things have changed so much and she doesn't want to do it next year, my sister won't have spent a lot of money kitting herself and two teens out. If she has a great time and is keen to come again, she will want to sew her own clothes. She is a skilled seamstress and has been involved in costuming for a dance school for years.

It also means I have a lot of extra infrastructure to bring this year as well and managing the logistics of where beds will go along with other needed supplies. It's challenging. I could just cut my display back a notch for this year, but I really want to have a great display so my sister and the kids can see what it is I've been doing and how much work it is, but how nice the results are. I also need quiet spaces for the neuro spicy.

There are compromises for this year, but all in all, I think I'm heading in the right direction. There's no way it will all go up in one trip though, so it will be multiple trips to the site for setting up, and it's an hour from home in good traffic. More like two in peak hour, which is when I'll be travelling.

Anyway, wish me luck. I'm a ball of stress and my brain won't turn off at night like I really need it to. I'll be posting about my activities and more information about them specifically (with the lovely blue Medieval Woman banners too) over the next few weeks.