It's been forever and a day since I last updated this thing and I've done a couple projects between now and then.
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The rules

Leave me a comment saying, "I too am an egomaniac."

1. I respond by asking you five question. You will answer them, because you like talking about yourself.
2. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
3. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
4. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Once again, another pictureless entry. I haven't grabbed the camera to take pictures of the various projects lately. I've also been neglecting the updating this thing, but I am getting things done.


As far as the dress goes, I've got all the materials needed for the dress either in hand or ordered. The only thing I have left to buy that I need is some fabric to make the hat and some hat pins.


Currently, I'm sewing pearls onto the caul and that is.. going. It's a slow process, because I am not the world's fastest at hand sewing. I've been working on this project with my mother-in-law who is not experienced in period sewing, but is a very experienced and talented seamstress. We have completed the smock to go under the dress and the underskirt. The corset is cut out and we've started to modify the pattern to fit it to me so it provides proper support. We've also cut out two foreparts to go with the dress, one that will have pearls sewn onto it, and one that will be plain. We've also copied the pattern for the partlet and on Tuesday we'll be cutting out the skirt and the bodice.


We're aiming to have it done for Boar's Head which is an event on Dec. 10th, so we have a fair amount of time to get this done in. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Luckily, my mother-in-law has gotten rather interested in the dress and is looking forward to getting it done.


I've finished all the cordials that I've been working on so far. They're currently aging in the basement. I think I need to restrain the orange one, because it has this scum floating at the top which isn't very appealing or pretty, so I will be skimming that off soon.


I have 5 sugar pumpkins sitting in my kitchen just waiting to be roasted and chunked up and tossed into brandy. I'm looking forward to starting this particular cordial, if it wasn't for Minnesota's goofy alcohol laws, I would have started it this weekend, but I'm out of brandy. I think I'll be making more of the raspberry peach at the same time, because I am very pleased with how that cordial turned out. I have also found a variation on the rose cordial, and as I am blessed with an abundance of rose petals, I think that I will probably be trying that one as well. People will be getting rose cordial for gifts next year at 12th night, I think.


I haven't made any interesting period recipes lately. I'm hoping to have something done for our December meeting. I need to hunt down something that will travel well. Any suggestions are more than welcome.


I think that's it for my current projects. I'm not getting them done quite as fast as I'd hoped, but that's life I think. Had a couple things sidetrack me lately.

This will be an entry without pictures. That's because I haven't taken any yet and I'm feeling too tired tonight to drag out the camera. It has been a very busy week since my last updating. I have finished the trim work on the chemise for now, I am pondering the idea of adding more, but until I get the bodice done and can see how it looks with the chemise as it is, I am hesitant to spend another 12 hours hand sewing trim onto an undergarment. I am not the world's fastest sewer, it is definitely work for me.


In other dress news, I have gotten together with my mother-in-law, who might just be the world's fastest sewer. At least she's very good at it. We spent tonight cutting out my new underskirt, two foreparts, and a caul. One of the foreparts and the caul I will now spend the next couple of weeks sewing pearls onto. The two foreparts are out of the same material, but one I will be beading and one I will be leaving plain. That way if the beading takes me an extra long time, I can still wear the dress in the meantime.


I have also been working on more cordials. I was given a recipe for a strawberry cordial and.. well, I'm obsessive compulsive enough that you can never do just one of something. So I decided to do a raspberry-rose cordial and a spiced blueberry too. The inspiration behind the raspberry-rose was the abundance of rose petals that I had left over and the fact that I have read many recipes for raspberry cookies with rose water added.


The strawberry cordial is 2 lbs of strawberries, 2 cups of sugar, zest and juice of 1 lemon, 1 cup of brandy, 2 cups of vodka and 3 cups of white wine (I used a white zin). Mash the berries and sugar together, then add the rest and let sit for 2 weeks, strain, then age for at least 1 month.


The raspberry-rose cordial is 3 cups of dried red rose petals and 1 lbs of mashed raspberries with 6 cups of vodka.


The blueberry cordial is 3 lbs. of blueberries, 3 cinnamon sticks, 5 cloves and 6 cups of brandy.


So that is the end of my new projects at the moment. I'll post some pictures of the chemise and the cordials soon. My goal for the dress is to have it completed by December 8th, so we'll see. I have a good start on it so far.

I've finished my cordials and now they're in jars in a closet so they can age. The process of finishing them was pouring them in a strainer with a clean towel in it and squeezing all the liquid out, then adding a sugar syrup to them and pouring them into a canning jar to age. Right now I have 6 cordials in my closet aging. I am especially pleased with the way the peach-raspberry looks/smells and I think I will be making more of that one.


The raspberry



The orange



The vanilla-rose



The peach-raspberry



The mixed berry



I also finished the hazelnut coffee cordial, but I haven't taken a picture of it yet. So when I get a picture taken of the finished product, I'll post one.


In other project news, I have finished a new chemise type thing. Margo Anderson calls it a smock, so that is what I'll be calling it. It has a lovely square neckline, and I have purchased some pearl beads and black braid trim to stitch on around the neckline and wrist cuffs. I plan to post pictures of the smock once I have the detail work done. Since I have a long car ride this weekend, I'm hoping to get the smock done this weekend on the trip.


On the medieval food project plan, I have recently (as in.. 3 hours ago) tried out a new recipe from this website Recipes for the Feast at the Hunt for the Michaelmas Goose. I made the Almond Cardamom Cakes and they turned out beautifully. Like a spiced shortbread cookie with raisins. I think I will be making these again, possibly playing with variations in spice and dried fruit.

A quick update on how my cordials are going. With pictures!


Here is a picture of the raspberry, one week into the process.



And the orange.



I have started two new cordials. A raspberry-peach that is flavored with cinnamon and a plain mixed berry. For these cordials, I decided to use vodka instead of brandy.


The raspberry-peach.

One bag of frozen raspberries
One bag of frozen peaches
3 cinnamon sticks
3 cups of vodka




The mixed berry.

Two bags of frozen mixed berries
3 cups of vodka




And in my plans to experiment with medieval cooking, I have made two jars of refrigerator pickled beets. I'm not sure how period of a recipe it is, but I had beets that needed to be used and according to our resident periods food guru, they would work.

7 medium sized beets roasted in a foil packet with one sliced onion and 3 sprigs of fresh rosemary and 2 tbls. oil.
Sliced and layered into two quart sized jars with 3 sliced onions.
The vinegar mixture I used was 2 cups red wine vinegar, 2 cups water, 1 cup sugar, 4 tbs. salt. Brought to a boil, then poured into the jars to cover the veggies.

Sometime early this summer, I begin to have longings for an ultra feminine dress. One that was frilly and even pink in parts. I wanted something that screamed GIRL as loudly as it could. So I spent the summer eying fabric stores and seeing what there was to see. I happened to mention my idea for this GIRL dress to a friend who's wife does costuming for the local youth theater. As they are the local youth theater, they get donations of upholstery fabric remnants from a local furniture store. Now, evidently the theater does not get much call for burgundy fabric, which fit into my plans for the GIRL dress nicely. My timing was perfect, because they had recently gotten a bunch of burgundy fabric and they had more fabric than plans. They also received a beautiful piece of patterned burgundy fabric.


The dress I chose to make is a dress that is modeled after a dress worn in a portrait by Maria de Medici. The dress is in my user icon. I thought that this was a very beautiful style of dress and I could fit the fabric that I had to make it work. I was also lucky enough to find a lovely pink at a local fabric store that will be perfect for my forepart.


I am using a pattern from Margo Anderson to make the dress. The patterns were on the expensive side, but well worth it when you consider the pages and pages of documentation that come with it.


This is all three fabrics together that will make up the main part of the dress.





Here is a close up picture of just the pink.





Here is a close up picture of the burgundy patterned fabric that I will be cutting up to use for trim.





And here is a closer picture of the burgundy.





I have various other fabrics for the smock, corset and partlet that will make appearences throughout the updating of the progress on this dress. I am hoping to start the smock on Tuesday and I am planning to cheat to give the appearence of blackwork by using a decorative sewing machine stitch on the cuffs and collar. I know, it's cheating, but if you saw my embroidery, you'd understand why I'm choosing to do so. I think the biggest challenge that this dress will provide to me will be the sewing of the pearls. I plan to sew a pearl into each flower of the pink. Luckily I'm only using the pink for the forepart, but I still think that by the time I'm done I will never want to see another pearl. My goal for this dress is to be done by the beginning of December.

These are some pictures of the cordials that I've been making. Obviously, the red one is the raspberry and the orange one is the orange.



Blurry close up of the raspberry.





Raspberry Cordial
2 bags of frozen red raspberries
Zest (colored part of the peel) and juice of one lemon
3 cups of brandy


Blurry close up of the orange.





Orange-Clove Cordial
Zest (colored part of the peel) of 6 oranges
Juice and pulp of 5 oranges
6 whole cloves
3 cups brandy.