I had the opportunity to teach again this year at the Wrightstown Renaissance Faire (The Village Renaissance Faire)

One of the classes I taught for the second year centered on essential oils. I spoke briefly on how herbs were distilled, how they were used, and then spent most of the time introducing students to the various scents that appear prominently in books by authors of the end of the 16th century: John Gerard, author of Gerard's Herball, Hugh Platt's Delights for Ladies and Gervase Markham's The English Housewife.

The booklet I used as part of the class is attached, giving modernized recipes as well as information on the traditional uses of many popular herbs. I hope you may find it useful.

Medieval Perfume Recipes (a PDF file)

Greetings good gentles!

I have created a searchable, sortable version of the course catalog for the university at Pennsic 40. There are so many wonderful classes being taught this year at Pennsic that it can feel a bit overwhelming looking through all of the descriptions. It takes a few moments to load the first time, or if you've cleared your cache; thanks for your patience!

I do hope you find it useful.

http://cjmconnors.com/content/pennsic-university-class-list-pennsic-40

Yours in Service,
Markesa

P.S. This schedule doesn't play nicely with all version of IE - sorry! I'll look into fixes for that for the future.

I had a great time helping out at this past Crown Tournament, especially as I was able to indulge in all of my interests: papermaking, bookbinding, letterpress and the children!

Prior to the event I spent a fun afternoon with the lovely Lady Naomi, helping her make the site tokens. It had been decided to letterpress the tokens, and she had carved a block with the image for the day. We set the type together, and after some testing and finagling set to printing. We got into a nice rhythm before I had to leave, but I think we managed to get just under half of the tokens done that afternoon. Here's a video of the first of the run after we'd worked out the kinks in our system:

I helped out in the Children's Area all day, which was both fun and tiring! The kids were all given special mementos of the day - handmade 9 Man Morris boards that a few of us adults got together to draw. Lady Sabatina was a wonderful coordinator of all of the activities and ran a tight ship - the children had fun, no one was taken advantage of, and everyone was safe!

We kicked off the day by having the children scavenge for plant materials with which to make paper. I taught them briefly the history of paper, what plants to look for, and showed them a sample of what the paper would look like when it was done. We talked about what we should do with the paper we made, but I won't spoil the surprise! The short handout is available for download if you're interested.

There were shield-making classes, embroidery classes, games, a bit of youth fighting thanks to Lord Fearghus and more throughout the day. In the afternoon I showed the children how to make simple books. I pre-printed several pages of Aesop's fables, and showed those who joined the class how to sew them together with a simple cover. Perhaps someday one or two of the kids will show a deeper interest in how books are made!

It was such fun to be at an event AND get to practice some of my own hobbies. I am looking forward to making that happen more!

His Excellency Master Iheronimus Bruckner surprised me last weekend by offering to take me on as his Protege and Apprentice. Or, as Baron Ernst put it, Apprentege. Or was that Protogentice? ;) We had originally thought of talking about it for Pennsic, but as he is moving to The Outlands this summer, his attendance is not certain. Neither of us could think of a critical reason NOT to do it, so at Carolingia's 40th we had a small ceremony. We may have to 'renew our vows' again sometime for the benefit of all the loved ones who couldn't be there. My sincere apologies to you all; I wish you had been able to join us! I do not yet have any of the pictures that were taken; I'll share them as soon as I can.

I am very honored, excited, and look forward to all the things that we can learn together! This is the start of a wonderful year!

my paternoster

I am woefully behind on getting this posted, but I am VERY excited to say that Iheronimus took me as a student last week at EK Coronation. I'm really looking forward to all that we can learn together. Vivat!

Our Shire held a class on making stone mosaic tiles in February 2011. Here's mine. It's not very flat, but will be good for pots and such while camping. This was my first try at mosaic and I learned lots. :)

From Markesa's photos on Picasaweb

March 6, 2011
My first attempt at a text block on my own. My A&S busy work during a rainy yurt building day with folks inside and out. The autoplay settings go too fast to allow for reading the captions, so please click at the bottom of the slideshow to display the buttons to go forward and back. :)