Medieval vacation part 2, tents, dresses and a dog

To continue the tale of my adventures in Visby during Medieval week, I give you the second part of the story! The first can be found here.

We stayed in the SCA-camp, which is a strictly medieval camp, no modern tents allowed, no modern stuff visible (like shoppingbags, sleeping bags etc). Of course there are exeptions; like baby strollers, glasses etc, but we try to let everything that is visible be at least medieval inspired.

We lived in a tent made by me (I made a tent, can you believe it?). I sewed the fabric-part myself, and a friend made the wooden frame. Some measurements: at the base it's 4 metres in diameter, the wheel is 2 metres up from the ground, the center pole is 3,5 metre tall. You can see a bit of the table and the curtain we used to conseal our sleeping-bags =)

Our neighbours. Their tent, furniture, carpets, it was just beautiful! I love this picture of Anna, sitting down for some quiet sewing (they had two small children, so there wasn't much sitting down for them =). The children were adorable, though).

A typical part of any SCA-event: court. Who "rules"/wears the crown is a complicated affair involving fighting in heavy armour but also a bit of politic, and I'll refrain from analyzing it here =) One might say it's a mix of role-playing and reality, for the people ruling do a lot of work during the months they rule but at same time it's of course a game. It's suppose to be fun, after all =) If nothing else, court is a great time to admire everyone's garb, as most people like to wear their finest then.

Dancing! I only attended one day, we had a lazy vacation =) It was fun to dance a bit, though! Esp as I, for once, didn't have to lead the dance, but could happily just bounce along to someone else's directions.

In this photo I'm wearing part (the cooler part) of my flemish gown. I left the split overdress (wool interlined with linen) at home. I love this outfit! It's so versitile, I can wear it from -15 to +30. The shift is in white linen, a t-dress. The grey dress is linen as well, the bodice is two-layered for stability, the skirt is pleated. Then there's a partlet on top of the whole thing. The bodice is one of the most difficult pieces of fitting I've ever performed, it only worked because of mom's expert help. See, they didn't use darts at the time. Nor princess-seams. And... ah, well, I think I'll geek-out about the sewing in a separate post later on =)

Ehrm... isn't it pretty? ;)

Mom and Elsa in front of a shop in town. On Gotland they're big on lambs, so of course there's lamb's fur-stuff everywhere in the tourist-district. Note the small lambsfur dog in the displaywindow. Then note Elsa. Sometimes small children mistake her for a lamb... Lol!

Last picture for today: Elsa in the tent. I might have a candy in my hand... =)

In the next post I'll take you on a small tour of the lovely city of Visby, plus share some of my favorites from the market. I had planned for that to be my last report from Visby, but I might make a separate post with just geeky details about sewing and outfits =)

Love, Erika