I think this has to be my favourite photo from this year so far. Taken from behind the castle after the Festival Opening Ceremony and waiting for the participants to arrive around the back for the Grand Parade so i can collect their bits and pieces from them.

Photo by Fiona Brown.

The Abbey Medieval Festival was great fun. Here's the round up:

My helper girls were all pretty fantastic. Two had not been before and were full of the wonder of seeing it all for the first time- the Jousting, the Turkish oil Wrestling, the Trebuchets, the Knights... they skipped in and out of the tent and had a great time!

Here's Alicia, doing just that!


Book sales were phenomenal for me, and I sold out almost completely on the first day and had to ask someone from Brisbane to bring more the following day. This led to a comedy of errors where my cat sitter hadn't left the keys where he should and the person couldn't get inside without a detour to pick up the keys. Not a big drama, but I was trying to conserve my phone battery, so that was annoying.

The giveaway with the secret word was a ton of fun and was won by a very excited patron.

My talks on Medieval Women's Secrets was well received with not enough seats but keen listeners sitting on the grass.

My Grandbabes visited the festival in costume! He as a dinosaur looking very dragon-y and she as a little llama. I'm to make costumes for next year and I can't tell you, I'm excited about that!

The Opening Ceremony was well received by the audience and the CEO of the Museum who hadn't seen it yet, so that was a relief. All the props I made for it were lovely and did what they needed to do.


I wasn't able to see any jousting myself, but was excited that friends made it through to the final and a lady jouster won overall for the weekend. Lady Elizabeth was completely amazing! She's in red in the top photo. (both photos by James Niland)


Thankfully, it didn't rain, so my wet weather prep for the weekend wasn't needed and everything stayed nice and dry. Heavy overnight dew on the last night meant having to allow the tents to dry before pack up on Monday.

Tania who did my cover art swung past the tent and we got a few photos together. I'm looking forward to the workshop tomorrow to brush up my skills.

Shadiversity I've already talked about.

Good fun had by all. Of course, people in my tent and in camp have come down with Covid and my ex was a twit, but more about him later.

Here we see the culmination of three of the projects I have been working on for the Opening Ceremony of the Abbey Medieval Festival 2022: The Shield of Valour, the Mantle or Temperance and the Crown of Chivalry.

All in all, I'm really pleased with how it looks on him, and I'm super pleased with this photo by Adamare Creations who captured me bestowing the crown on our lovely Sir Richard Sheffield.

The entire Opening Ceremony went really well, with laughter where it should have been, seriousness where it should have been, lots of colour and a great Lord Herald narrating. It was a huge amount of work to organise, but on reasonably short notice, I'm pleased at the feedback. The CEO and Director of the Museum were both delighted, so that's what matters.

Further posts and photos of the event to follow... lots happened and much was extremely successful.

The weekend just gone was a few hours of fun while we had a bit of a photo and style session with my second stallholder assistant. She liked a few of the looks, but by far my favourite one was this.

The kirtle is machined on the inside but hand finished with all the neckline, hems and cuffs and, of course, alllll those eyelets! She's wearing one of my linen veils and wimples. I really enjoy taking the photos so the ladies can see for themselves what looks great so they can rock them with confidence. She liked the one without the wimple, but it really is a great look for her, and perhaps when she sees the rest of us with ours, she'll feel like joining us.

No real issue if she doesn't, but it's going to be cold, so a snuggly hood and surcote might be the mode instead!

 

Find the Stag Inn and I'm right across the road.

You'll be able to buy my book, admire the actual original cover art and enter my fun medieval giveaway.

 

 

I've been charged with sorting the Opening Ceremony for a medieval festival and in the mix are three allegorical Ladies- that is, three personifications of virtuous traits. Lady Valour needed some clothing and since it's not re-enactment garb, I was able to have a little fun with it and take a few short cuts to make a fancy dress outfit which would be easily seen against a dark grey castle wall, and be blingy.

I've used a cotton brocade with a pattern similar to some 15th century artworks, but it's not a reproduction. I've added some gold braided trim around the hem and applied "red coral" and "pearl" beading, both not actual gemstones in this case.

 

The cream "pearls" sort of disappeared into the trim, but the red popped quite nicely. Sadly, it needed to be hand beaded and that took quite a bit of time. The end result was well worth it, though, I feel.

Finally, I added some large, gold-coloured disc buttons which are sometimes seen on effigies.

 

Since the outfit was not for re-enactment purposes, I didn't worry too much about matching the actual button design from the effigy which for all the world looks like it has tiny, little cats in the centre section. The picture above shows a test placing trialing garnet beads for the centres. In the end, I went with matching "red coral."

Once the entire outfit was finished, I did a fitting with one of the women who will be wearing it and discovered that the proposed circlet didn't really work, so I guess I'll need to make a matching one as well!

I'm extremely excited to finally have these cloak brooches on a cloak which suits them. The brooches were made by Armour and Castings, craftsmen in Ukraine who are doing it tough right now. They're still working when they can and many of our re-enactment family are supporting them with orders and gift certificates.

I've chosen to join them with a silk tablet-woven band made by Mervi Pasanen from Swan River Crafts. I'm not sure whether I will swap it out for one a bit thinner or not. I may just need to find a better way to attach it.

In this photo you can see the roses coronet, which shall be used in the Opening Ceremony of the Abbey Medieval Festival this year along with the cloak I'm wearing. I am pretty excited that I managed to make such a great coronet out of such interesting pieces and for such little cost.

But that's another post!