gardners_7ginzo – Page 3 – Gardiners Company Inc

Gardiners Site Cleanup

November 16, 2014 October 31, 2023 / By gardners_7ginzo

The site is cleared and cleanup has begun! Several members spent this past weekend, cleaning up debris, pulling up small roots, moving logs around and marking out the kitchen and tavern site.

The site is beautifully situated with a large level area dotted with beech and oak trees for shade and completely surrounded by forest. There’s a nice rise of trees on one side creating a perfect berm for archery and black powder. It’s far enough from the road for privacy, atmosphere and quiet.

The morning was spent picking up branch debris and digging up or hacking away roots waiting to trip you up. Then Bob and Alan headed up the driveway to move some trees. Alan used his tow chain to line the drive with a few, while others were towed to the kitchen site for firewood.

Harv, Rob, Jeff and Jen tackled the large pile of trees left by the clearing company. The hope is to have someone come with a portable mill to cut the trees for use in the kitchen and/or tavern in exchange for them taking some trees for their own. We’ll see if that works out. The group spent some time rolling some logs off the huge pile onto a sled so they can be worked. A combination of strategic chain sawing, leverage and the occasional tow chain from Rob’s Suburban brought down a dozen or so logs without injury.

That wrapped up the day, but there is still a lot of work to do. There are several holes where large trees came down that will need to be filled. Bob and Harv will be starting on the kitchen soon, digging footers and tackling the brick work. The plans for the kitchen along with a cut list will be done soon.

Thanks to Bob and Laura for hosting and coordinating everything! Jeff and Rob who drove down for the day from Maryland and Harv, Alan and Jen for all their work!

To see more images of the site, visit my Flickr site.

Gardiner’s at Pennsic 43

September 3, 2014 September 3, 2014 / By gardners_7ginzo

Gardiner’s Company had a fun camp this year at Pennsic, in the back of Vair and Ermine on Battle Road. In addition to cooking, sewing, fighting, and general frivolity, Gardiner’s members participated in three main events.

On Sunday, Gardiner’s members set-up and staffed a table at the Pennsic Arts and Sciences Display in the Great Hall. We had a great selection of goods from woodworking and armour to embroidery and clothing. We tried to share the love of late Sixteenth Century English life and goods to any who dropped by to take a look. Ester was our driving force in reserving space for herself and Gardiner’s Company, as well as arranging for a good host of members to staff the table and talk about the arts on display.

Isobel, Eleanor, and Ester with with the display of arts.

Monday afternoon manly displays of skill were seen as the men gathered for Pike Drill. Master Hamilton took the lads through a brief reminder of the commands before setting out to march around the Pennsic Market area thereby ensuring the safety of all, clearly driving away all those with ill-intents by the cunning display of ferocity. Zeke provided just enough color commentary to keep the lads entertained, and Adrian/Ian/Nigel/Ester’s brother led the crew in singing Jolly Broome Man and Amarylis to keep time.

We also held an Open Camp Night on Tuesday night that included many interesting and interested people, discussions varied from costumes to games to fighting, and lots of drinking.

Thanks all for a rousing Summer Muster, may we remember it fondly as winter’s chill creeps upon us.

More photos of the Arts and Sciences Display and Pike Drill are available. Alas, I believe we were all in our cups during the Open Camp night and neglected to take photos that evening.

Summer Workshop

July 8, 2014 July 8, 2014 / By gardners_7ginzo

On Saturday, July 5th, a host of Gardiner’s Company and friends gathered at the Hamilton’s house on Pepper Alley for some sewing, some painting, some personal projects, a class on ‘falling bands’, and lots of delicious food. Sadly the motivation to do any actual skirmishing never appeared, but there was plenty of talking about fighting.

New tables were acquired for the Company’s use, and so several folks got to work painting them Bandes blue, and then applying one coat of varnish.

Edwin and Alan apply varnish to newly painted tables

More than a few bandesmen worked on some personal projects in the shade. Richard worked on weaving some new trim, Ester fingerloop braids new cords for shirt strings, and Eleanor works on some hand sewing on a new bodice, but also helped make a new doublet pattern for Robert, as well as helping Zeke with some pants.

Personal projects in the works; sewing and weaving

Sadly, the larger of the resident beagles hurt his knee in all the excitement of visitors, so he was properly medicated and crated, but kept near Master Hamilton to ensure he remained quiet and as happy as possible. The girl beagle did her best to make everyone feel welcomed and shed upon, with a happy doggie grin and wiggly rear.

Isobel hosted a class on the falling band, a collar that was issued to all bandesmen in Gardiner’s Company to protect the necks of their doublets.

Isobel showed a variety of falling bands and cuffs, from the truly fancy bedecked with lace, to the simplest pleated of a rougher linen. She also demonstrated pulling threads to ensure a straight cut on the grain, as well as a precursor to making a neat drawn work hem.

She gave us a great ratio to figure out how to determine starting lengths of linen strips. Start by measuring the collar of a doublet from either side of the button placket, and add two inches for hems. This piece is for the neckband portion that will attach to the doublet collar, and should be roughly two inches wide. Take the neckband measurement and double that to determine the length of the collar fall, which ideally is about 4 inches wide. The fall can be narrower at around 2 inches, or much wider around 8 inches, depending on taste or fashion. The same ratio works for cuffs as well, if you choose.

Most importantly, we were exceptionally well fed. From a delicious lunch with sides and baked goods, to a grilled dinner, and decadent dessert. Once again, our cooks excelled in their jobs and we are fortunate in their company.

Fashion in Colonial Virginia

July 2, 2014 September 26, 2023 / By gardners_7ginzo

On Saturday, June 28th, Robert and Isobel, Christopher and Emma, and Alan and Jane descended on Jamestown Settlement’s Fort to volunteer for the day discussing fashion, clothing, and textiles to visitors, in addition to the history of the Fort.

The Governor’s new clothes were on display, one set laid out on the Governor’s bed as if prior to getting dressed, and the fine silk suit folded neatly in the clothes press.

Emma, Robert, and Isobel stage and interpret in the Parlor and Hall of the Governor’s house.

A few more pictures of the day are available on Flickr.

Ruby Joust and Other Divers News

May 25, 2014 May 25, 2014 / By gardners_7ginzo

On Saturday the 24th of May, members of Gardner’s Company turned out at the SCA’s Ruby Joust to fence, frolic, share stuff we’ve made, and lure unsuspecting volunteers into the manly art of pike drill.

Zeke explains what's what. — Zeke explains what’s what.

Did he say "port" or "shoulder"? — Did he say “port” or “shoulder”?

Ah, right, that's better! — Ah, right, that’s better!

Ah, nothing like a pleasant afternoon marching about!

Saluting the assembled mob...eh...populace. — Saluting the assembled mob…eh…populace.

Perhaps the most important pike maneuver: Assume a Lazy Posture.

A few weeks back, some our members attended Jamestown Day as costumed interpreters. Jane Gravesend was kind enough to grab a few pics of the Governor’s chair in its new home.

For those of you who do Facebook, Ester Pickering has completed an amazing embroidered sweet bag, which was also on display at Ruby Joust.

Timeline of events leading up to our Spring Muster (2014)

April 22, 2014 April 22, 2014 / By gardners_7ginzo

Robert has put together a timeline for events occurring before Muster, set in April 1594. These events are from 1593, as nothing of import seems to have occurred until May of 1594.

Given the speed which information passed in period, all of the events would be known to the citizens of London by Muster. You may have even seen the various plays listed, as well as others from previous years. Here are some starter links if you wish to research any of these for more details for gossip to spread at the event.
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1593

January – John Norden commissioned to make maps of all the counties of England. Speculum Britanniae: the First Parte: an Historicall, & Chorographicall Discription of Middlesex was published later this year.

February – London’s theatres were closed again due to an outbreak of the plague, and many players left the capital to tour the provinces. No theater performances since then.

23 February – Peter Wentworth imprisoned for raising the issue of succession to the throne in Parliament.

6 April — Henry Barrow and John Greenwood, puritan Separatists, were hanged at Tyburn.
– The Witches of Warboys, Alice, John and Agnes Samuel, having been found guilty of witchcraft, were hanged at Huntingdon.

5 May – “Dutch church libel“: Bills posted in London, on the wall of a Dutch churchyard in Broad Street, threatening Protestant refugees from France and the Netherlands allude to Christopher Marlowe’s plays.

12 May – Arrest of dramatist Thomas Kyd in connection with the “Dutch church libel”. “Atheist” literature found in his home is claimed to be Marlowe’s.

18 May – A warrant for the arrest of Christopher Marlowe is issued. On 20 May he presents himself to the Privy Council. A theory on the framing of Marlowe

29 May – Execution of the Welsh Protestant John Penry suspected of involvement with the Marprelate Controversy.

May 30 — Dramatist Christopher Marlowe is stabbed to death in a dispute over the bill at a lodging house in Deptford.

September — Irish pirate queen Grace O’Malley meets with Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich.

The Taming of the Shrew, Henry VI, Part 3, and Richard III all have been performed at The Theater.

Publication of Shakespeare’s poem Venus and Adonis.

Coinage of the Elizabethan Era

April 4, 2014 October 23, 2023 / By gardners_7ginzo

Robert has created an article on Elizabethan Money. Most of the reproduction money we use for pay and gaming in Gardiner’s Company are the farthings, ha’penny, penny, tuppence, groats, and sixpence. Robert has included descriptions and images of each coin to help us identify them.

Enjoy!

Coinage of the Elizabethan Era

The Governor’s New Chair by Thomas Pennington

February 23, 2014 February 23, 2014 / By gardners_7ginzo

As those of you who follow the Gardiner’s blog know, we’ve been involved in providing two sets of clothing for the new Row House at the Jamestown Settlement museum. Additionally, I’ve been working on a project to help furnish the new building, a turned chair for the Governor’s bedchamber.

There are already some nice examples of the joiner’s craft in the row house, such as this frame and panel chair with linenfold panels.

Or this joined chair with an upholstered back and seat.

Both of these examples use mortise and tenon joints, a method of construction restricted among the London trade companies to joiners. Other furniture making trades, such as carpenters and turners, were in theory forbidden from their use. For carpenters, basic nailed board construction was typical, such as these classic six-board chests.

Turner’s were left to round mortises and tenons, essentially a round peg in a round hole. Since the turner’s trade is not represented in the Fort’s furniture, I volunteered to build a chair that would be appropriate for the new Governor’s bedchamber. Turned chairs were reaching their height of popularity in the late 16th and early 17th century, from simple three-post triangle stools to elaborate great chairs with masses of turned spindles, knobs, and rings.

The model we settled on for the new chair was an Anglo-Welsh piece, circa 1600. Appropriate for a high-status owner, this chair uses a relatively new style of construction where the back is slightly reclined, rather than the traditional medieval style of a straight, vertical back. Such a chair would have been turned on a pole lathe, a foot-powered lathe that uses a back-and-forth, reciprocal motion to spin the workpiece. More about early modern lathes can be found here.

The Jamestown Settlement curator requested that the chair be made of white oak, as opposed to the original ash. In addition, I took a few liberties with the design to make it more durable for its role in an open-air museum. The original had wide, flat captured rings on the back rail, and sharp profiles on some of the back spindles that I thought would not hold up under rough use. Most of the differences are subtle, and the captured rings have been replaced with more conventional solid ones.

Here is the chair thus far,

And a close-up of the back,

I still have a few rails to turn, and of course the seat panels to mortise in, but otherwise it is getting close to completion. With luck, it will go to the fort for the weekend of Military Through the Ages.

Jamestown Volunteer Training Weekend by Thomas Pennington

February 17, 2014 February 17, 2014 / By gardners_7ginzo

Some of Gardiner’s Company escaped the ice and snow over Presidents Day weekend and headed to Jamestown Settlement for volunteer training. Gardiner’s was well represented, with several folks down for the first time. After an exciting round of paperwork and fire extinguisher training (hey, the fort did burn several times), we proceeded with interpretive techniques, black powder safety, Elizabethan edged weapons, and domestic activities. Vince did a great presentation on the processing of iron ore into wrought iron using a period style bloomery, as well as other processes and types of iron and steel. Not to mention fresh Duck Donuts!

Sunday, Mary Bull presented a class on the other colonial and trade ventures that we’re going on in the New World, giving some additional context to what the English we’re doing at Jamestown. Then some folks got additional black powder training while others checked out more progress with the Governor’s House and renovations to the fort office. The day wrapped up with a Volunteers Retreat, where the Governor’s new clothes were displayed and a call was put out for help staffing the new house so we can display more high-status artifacts without them going walkabout or getting damaged.

The next Jamestown event will be Military Through the Ages the weekend of March 15th, where Gardiner’s members will volunteer in the fort to provide military and domestic demonstrations, as well as judges for the various competitions.

Turks Head Knot by Ester Pickering

February 14, 2014 February 14, 2014 / By gardners_7ginzo

The turks head knot, a decorative, yet challenging little knot. It was commonly used on sweet bags and is still used today as a decorative knot and seems to be popular for Boy Scouts as a Wood Badge Woggle. Initially I used the instructions from Jacqui Carey’s Sweet Bags book but was confused that it didn’t match some of the knots shown in the close-up images of period bags. There seemed to be various sizes of the knot.

After perusing various books, I found a wealth of information on the internet. It seems there is an entire class of knots known as Turk’s head. They are characterized by leads and bights. What are those you ask? Leads are the number of loops the knot is created from and bights are the indentations created by the weave pattern.

So the knot instructions from the Carey book on Sweet bags is a 3 lead 4 bight knot, which was perfect for the small knots. However, I wanted a wider knot for the top of my bottom dangles and that matched the knot seem in some of the sweet bags shown in the book. I found instructions for a 4 lead 5 bight knot. This was perfect. This is a 4 loop knot with 5 indentations.

I found great instructions for this knot from The International Guild of Knot Tyers. They call it the 5 x 4 Turk’s Head on Hand. I started the knot on hand as it set up the weave. Then tightened this down over a chopstick. The knot is then transferred to the sweet bag and tightened further. You can’t tighten too much as you need room to weave 2 more passes of thread to bulk out the knot.

I used #4 Gilt Smooth Passing Thread from Access Commodities. It is challenging to tighten this knot down evenly before you start weaving, but the result was a nicely woven knot that covered the area I wanted. Instructions for the smaller 3 lead 4 bight knot are found in the Sweet Bags book. Carey gives great instructions. The initial weave also makes a decorative flat knot also found on sweet bags usually made from gimp.