Photo of the Week

There's just something about the music of the bagpipes that I absolutely love. (Must be all that Celtic ancestry.) I heard the John Mohr Mackintosh Pipes and Drums perform at this year's Highland Weekend at the Georgia Renaissance Festival. They were fantastic!

Photo of the Week

It must be time for a little Christmas in July. This adorable Santa, whose fairy name is Cringle Redberry, could be found at this year's Georgia Renaissance Festival. I loved his outfit!

Photo of the Week

One of my favorite treats is a Dole Whip. So you can imagine my delight when I discovered that the ultimate Dole Whip had returned to the Georgia Renaissance Festival this year. It consists of a pineapple that has been hollowed out and then filled with chunks of pineapple and pineapple juice and topped with a large amount of frosty Dole Whip. It's pineapple heaven!

Photo of the Week

I love watching artisans perform their craft. One of my favorite crafts to watch is glassblowing. Leslie Pierce of Historical Glassworks demonstrates glassblowing several times a day at the Georgia Renaissance Festival. She's fascinating to talk to and spent time sharing information about the Glass Age with us.

Photo of the Week

I do love finding Dole Whip in unexpected places, like this Dole Whip Float at the Georgia Renaissance Festival. 

Photo of the Week

Zilch the Torysteller is one of my favorite performers at the Renaissance Faire.

Photo of the Week

I love watching Barely Balanced perform at the Georgia Renaissance Festival.

Photo of the Week

Barely Balanced, my favorite Renaissance Faire performers, at the 2019 Georgia Renaissance Festival.

Photo of the Week

It's so much fun to watch Barely Balanced at the Georgia Renaissance Festival!

Renaissance Music

I've been in a Renaissance mood lately. As a result, I've been playing a lot of Medieval and Renaissance inspired music. I thought I might share a few of my favorite albums, just in case you're feeling in a Renaissance mood, too.

Wolgemut - I got the chance to see them perform at the Oklahoma Renaissance Faire in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and they were absolutely fantastic. They perform historical music on medieval bagpipes, shawms, drums, flute, medieval fiddle, and harp. I bought two of their cds at the Faire: Danza and Ipse, Ipsa, Ipsum Optimus. The music is so different from modern tunes, but it definitely gets your toes tapping. I love it! (By the way, Wolgemut, pronounced vol-guh-moot, is an ancient Germanic word meaning "to be in a good mood.")

Blackmore's Night - An interesting mix of Folk Rock and traditional Renaissance music, Blackmore's Night was a group I discovered through Renaissance Magazine. They write many of their own songs, which are often my favorites. I have several of their albums, including Ghost of a Rose, Fires at Midnight, and Under a Violet Moon. I love many of their songs, especially "Queen for a Day", "Renaissance Faire" and "Catherine Howard's Fate".

Brobdingnagian Bards - I'm not quite sure how I stumbled across the Bards, but I'm certainly glad that I did. The duo write and sing a wide variety of witty songs, including absolutely hilarious Celtic songs, songs inspired by Buffy, Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings. Sadly, many are not entirely appropriate for children, but I love them anyway. My sister discovered that they were at DragonCon last year, and brought home three of their cds: Fairy Tales, Real Men Wear Kilts, and my favorite A Faire to Remember. It has my favorite songs: "Do Virgins Taste Better", "The Scotsman", and "Donald, Where's Your Trousers". (And in case you wondered, Brobdingnagian is a word from Gulliver's Travels. It's pronounced brob-din-nahg-EE-en and it means marked by great size.)

Mediaeval Baebes - With lyrics from Medieval and Romantic texts set to original music played on Medieval instruments, this small group of women create an unique and ethereal sound. I have four of their albums: Salva Nos, Worldes Blysse, Undrentide, and Mirabilis. I'm fond of many of the songs, including "Lhiannon Shee",  "Gaudete", and "Tam Lin". Their songs also appeared in the soundtrack for the BBC movie The Virgin Queen.

In addition to these fantastic groups, I would also recommend the soundtracks from BBC's The Virgin Queen, Elizabeth, and The Tudors. The music may be new, but it feels appropriate to the time period. For more information on any of these groups, be sure to check out their official websites. (The band names are linked.)

Georgia Renaissance Festival

Saturday, April 14th, was the opening day of the 27th season of the Georgia Renaissance Festival. We've been going to the Festival since 2005, but this was the first year that opening day happened to land on my birthday.

I attended my first Renaissance Faire in Arizona in 2000. It was love at first sight! I've worn garb to every faire and have become quite adept at sewing period clothing. I make all of the clothing that my family wears to the Festival, and we've gotten rather elaborate in recent years. It is SO much more fun to go in garb. It's rather like going to Disney World decked out in Disney merchandise; anyone who spots you knows you're there to have a good time.

This year, we had the chance to watch a few of our favorite acts: Hey Nunnie Nunnie (Mother Redempta and Sister Philomena Claire) and Barely Balanced (Jimmy, Cameron, and Margaret, aka: Large, Medium, and Small). Hey Nunnie Nunnie has hilarious songs and terrible jokes, but it's a lot of fun to watch. And we watched Barely Balanced in their fire show, one of our favorites. Acrobatics, danger, and fire breathing, what could be better!?

We also watched the joust from the premium seats, which was a lot of fun. We got a chance to meet the jousters, Sir Amadeo and Sir Edgeron, and they answered questions, signed pennants, and posed for pictures. We chose Sir Amadeo's side because he doesn't play fair and sometimes its fun to cheer for the villain.

The Festival was wonderfully fun, as always, and I look forward to going again soon.
The Georgia Renaissance Festival is open weekends from April 14 to June 3, 2012. Adult tickets are $19.95 and children aged 6-12 are $8.95, children 5 and under are free.

Happy Easter

Disney

Happy Easter, ya'll. I hope everyone is having a great Easter and many surprises from the Easter Bunny. I love this Mickey Bunny from the Disney Store, but my favorite Easter Bunny was actually an Easter Dragon. The Georgia Renaissance Faire once held its opening weekend over Easter Sunday. As a result, they added bunny ears and a fluffy tail to their giant Dragon mascot, and he handed out Easter eggs to all of the children. It was hilarious!

Ren Faire Dress

So, I've been working on a new dress for the Ren Faire this past week. I'm getting through the sewing rather quickly, although I have taken frequent trips on the internet to make sure that I am making it as authentic as possible. It's interesting to see descriptions and recreations of what we think they wore during Tudor and Elizabethan times. My dress is Elizabethan. It is similar to the pattern for the Shakespeare in Love dress, but that was just a jumping off point. I have changed more of the pattern than I have kept, but it's really starting to look good. I have finished a full length chemise that I designed myself, an overskirt, an underskirt, and a forepart (the pretty part that shows under the front of the skirt.) I'm still working on the bodice and bumroll, which will help to hold up all of those skirts. I must say, this costume has gone the smoothest of any I've made, especially considering all of the alterations I have made. I still enjoy making costumes, even though I've made dozens and really enjoy getting into the history of each one. Anyway, I'll be posting pictures of the finished product soon, as well as pictures of the remaining 5 costumes that I have to complete before the 17th of April. I'm going to be very busy!

Ren Faire fun

Bean with Titania, Queen of the Fairies, and her Court

My family enjoys going to Renaissance Faires. We dress up in costume and spend a day among the Lords and Ladies of the Kings court. It's a lot of fun and a unique experience. As purchasing costumes can be very expensive, I make all of my own, my family's and most of our friends. It's a lot of work to make sure that they are authentic, but it's well worth the effort. We all look great and it's a much richer experience to go to the Faire planning to play along instead of looking in as an outsider. For the next several weeks leading up to the Georgia Renaissance Festival, I will be working on half a dozen new costumes, so I'm going to be rather busy. As I spend a lot of time researching each costume, I'll try to share any interesting information I find. Enjoy!!