Mistress Katherina Weyssin made this:
for her Pelican ceremony, at the Royal Visit on the 30th of April, 2011.
. . . Only I didn't make it by myself, I made it with the help of the incredibly generous, kind and skillful people who became part of "Mistress Katherina's sweatshop". I had wanted to make this for a long time, and I'm very, very grateful to everyone who helped me get it done.
Thank you to:
- Caterine de Vantier, for doing most of the fitting for my corset and my gown, and putting up with endless fussing and revisions from me; also for getting me the red velvet.
- Anna de Wilde, for giving me her 25m (!) of gold lace. It's lovely, and exactly what I wanted, and Anna knew this because it was also exactly what she wanted for her dress, yet she gave it to me.
- William de Wyke and Catalina Oro Sol for giving me some of their extra-sturdy tenting canvas for the corset
- Anna again, for spending the weeks leading up to festival making my kirtle (including the eyelets, which we both loathe) so that I would have time for making my frivolous dress, yet still have practical camping clothes
- William de Wyke, for making the supportasse for the ruff, even when it turned out to take many, many times as long as we'd thought it would; also for taking over the cloth bits, which I was supposed to do, when I was too busy
- Caterine, for doing the waist band, pleats and finishing on the green silk petticoat
- Caterine, Eleanor Hall, and katherine kerr for helping me starch and set the ruff, very late on Friday night
- katherine kerr and Bartholomew Baskin for being extremely gracious when they arrived in Ildhafn late Friday night and found a noisy, chattering sweatshop instead of a restful bed
- Llewellyn and Ginevra, for spending Friday afternoon sewing lace on to tiny waist-tabs; and to Master Llewellyn for being gracious (and continuing to sew) in spite of my jokes about costuming laurels, and how they all know everything about lace (he's a 14th C costume laurel, and we're pretty sure he Doesn't Do Lace)
- Emayne, Peregrine and Llewellyn, who spent several hours at their first SCA event in ages sewing the sleeves of my gown, then sewing the sleeves onto my gown. Without them, I'd have been Pelicanned in my underwear!
- The stewards, for allowing me all sorts of license, including running about in my underwear hours after the event had opened
- William de Cameron, for dancing with me - the dress was always for dancing in, and there's nothing quite like dancing the right stuff in the right clothes with a skillful and well-dressed partner; also for bringing me Llewellyn on Friday night (I'm not sure if Llewellyn knew he was to be roped into sewing)
- My husband, Ludwig, for being incredibly patient with our living room being entirely taken over, for months, with sewing-detritus
Thank you! You've all contributed to making me very, very happy.
- Katherina Weyssin, newly dressed