August Arts & Sciences Workshop Day, 2006

On the second Saturday of each month, the artisans and craftspeople of the Shire descend upon the home of Gwynfor and Gwir to undertake the diverse passtimes of the Middle Ages. This month I actually got my camera out for a while, and captured some of the activities that were under way.

 

(left to right) Lady Emma de Lastone, the Shire's Seneschal, hand sewing a tunic for herself.
Some of the gathering, to wit (l-r) Master Thorfinn Hrolfsson, Lady Teffania Tuckerton & Mistress Nicolette Dufay weaving a winnowing basket, Master Cormac Lenihan figuring out a dance (and he's obscuring Lady Emma), and Lord Yves de Lyle.
Mistress Nicolette basket weaving a winnowing basket.

(left to right) Baroness Gwir verch Madog spinning chocolate brown fleece into yarn for her next weaving project.
Lady Teffania Tuckerton and Mistress Nicolette working on the basket weaving for the winnowing basket.
Master Cormac Lenihan working on the dance steps for a new dance to teach.

(left to right) The winnowing basket taking shape.
Master Gwynfor Lwyd's quern, with the drill in place for hand drilling the holes to form a fracture line to separate the rotary top from the base.
The line of hand drilled holes. This is 3 of the 20 or so that will be needed, at about 90 minutes to drill each one. Another 36 will be needed to form the hole for the spindle and the holes for the handles (at least 36, maybe more).

 

Inside the house, and not photographed, others were doing singing, music, costume and cooking research, embroidery, cooking and much wrangling of the usual horde of small children (I think we had 8 or 9 under six years old wreaking havoc). In the workshop, Zhou affixed fans to the outsides of his knee cops. All up, we had 16 adults and 9 small ones from midday until the last person left at about 8pm.