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Society For Creative Anachronism Activities
The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) is a medieval reenactment group with an international membership, founded in California in 1966. Members of the group participate, to a greater or lesser extent, in a wide variety of activities based on those found in pre-1601 CE cultures. The vast majority of interests in the SCA are either combat-focused, or focused on the day-to-day crafts of the period, known within the Society as A&S (Arts & Sciences). Gatherings of the SCA are events, at which attempts at pre-17th century costume must be worn, and practices or meetings, at which costuming is largely up to each member's discretion—although sufficient safety equipment must always be worn for practicing combat skills. Arts and sciences Within the SCA, more or less all activities which are not specifically combat-related are considered to be Arts & Sciences (A&S). These run the entire gamut of skills used in the medieval world, ranging from decorative and performing arts to practical s ...
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Society For Creative Anachronism
The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) is an international living history group with the aim of studying and recreating mainly Medieval European cultures and their histories before the 17th century. A quip often used within the SCA describes it as a group devoted to the Middle Ages "as they ought to have been", choosing to "selectively recreate the culture, choosing elements of the culture that interest and attract us". Founded in 1966, the non-profit educational corporation has over 20,000 paid members as of 2020 with about 60,000 total participants in the society (including members and non-member participants). History The SCA's roots can be traced to a backyard party of a UC Berkeley medieval studies graduate, the author Diana Paxson, in Berkeley, California, on May Day in 1966. The party began with a "Grand Tournament" in which the participants wore helmets, fencing masks, and usually some semblance of a costume, and sparred with each other using weapons such as plywood ...
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Western Calligraphy
Western calligraphy is the art of writing and penmanship as practiced in the Western world, especially using the Latin alphabet (but also including calligraphic use of the Cyrillic and Greek alphabets, as opposed to "Eastern" traditions such as Turko- Perso-Arabic, Chinese or Indian calligraphy). A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner." The story of writing is one of aesthetic development framed within the technical skills, transmission speed(s) and material limitations of a person, time and place. A style of writing is described as a ''script'', ''hand'' or ''alphabet''. Calligraphy ranges from functional hand-lettered inscriptions and designs to fine art pieces where the abstract expression of the handwritten mark may or may not supersede the legibility of the letters.Mediavilla 1996 Classical calligraphy differs from typography and non-classical hand-lettering, though a calligra ...
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Lace-making
Lace is a delicate fabric made of yarn or thread in an open weblike pattern, made by machine or by hand. Generally, lace is divided into two main categories, needlelace and bobbin lace, although there are other types of lace, such as knitted or crocheted lace. Other laces such as these are considered as a category of their specific craft. Knitted lace, therefore, is an example of knitting. This article considers both needle lace and bobbin lace. While some experts say both needle lace and bobbin lace began in Italy in the late 1500s, there are some questions regarding its origins. Originally linen, silk, gold, or silver threads were used. Now lace is often made with cotton thread, although linen and silk threads are still available. Manufactured lace may be made of synthetic fiber. A few modern artists make lace with a fine copper or silver wire instead of thread. Etymology The word lace is from Middle English, from Old French ''las'', noose, string, from Vulgar Latin *''l ...
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Weaving
Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft, woof, or filling. (''Weft'' is an Old English word meaning "that which is woven"; compare ''leave'' and ''left''.) The method in which these threads are interwoven affects the characteristics of the cloth. Cloth is usually woven on a loom, a device that holds the warp threads in place while filling threads are woven through them. A fabric band that meets this definition of cloth (warp threads with a weft thread winding between) can also be made using other methods, including tablet weaving, back strap loom, or other techniques that can be done without looms. The way the warp and filling threads interlace with each other is called the weave. The majority of woven products a ...
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Cross-stitch
Cross-stitch is a form of sewing and a popular form of counted-thread embroidery in which X-shaped stitches in a tiled, raster-like pattern are used to form a picture. The stitcher counts the threads on a piece of evenweave fabric (such as linen) in each direction so that the stitches are of uniform size and appearance. This form of cross-stitch is also called counted cross-stitch in order to distinguish it from other forms of cross-stitch. Sometimes cross-stitch is done on designs printed on the fabric (stamped cross-stitch); the stitcher simply stitches over the printed pattern. Cross-stitch is often executed on easily countable fabric called aida cloth whose weave creates a plainly visible grid of squares with holes for the needle at each corner. Fabrics used in cross-stitch include linen, aida cloth, and mixed-content fabrics called 'evenweave' such as jobelan. All cross-stitch fabrics are technically "evenweave" as the term refers to the fact that the fabric is woven to mak ...
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Embroidery
Embroidery is the craft of decorating fabric or other materials using a needle to apply thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as pearls, beads, quills, and sequins. In modern days, embroidery is usually seen on caps, hats, coats, overlays, blankets, dress shirts, denim, dresses, stockings, scarfs, and golf shirts. Embroidery is available in a wide variety of thread or yarn colour. Some of the basic techniques or stitches of the earliest embroidery are chain stitch, buttonhole or blanket stitch, running stitch, satin stitch, and cross stitch. Those stitches remain the fundamental techniques of hand embroidery today. History Origins The process used to tailor, patch, mend and reinforce cloth fostered the development of sewing techniques, and the decorative possibilities of sewing led to the art of embroidery. Indeed, the remarkable stability of basic embroidery stitches has been noted: The art of embroidery has been found worldwide and ...
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Needlepoint
Needlepoint is a type of canvas work, a form of embroidery in which yarn is stitched through a stiff open weave canvas. Traditionally needlepoint designs completely cover the canvas. Although needlepoint may be worked in a variety of stitches, many needlepoint designs use only a simple tent stitch and rely upon color changes in the yarn to construct the pattern. Needlepoint is the oldest form of canvas work. The degree of detail in needlepoint depends on the thread count of the underlying mesh fabric. Due to the inherent lack of suppleness of needlepoint, common uses include eyeglass cases, holiday ornaments, pillows, purses, upholstery, and wall hangings. History The roots of needlepoint go back thousands of years to the ancient Egyptians, who used small slanted stitches to sew up their canvas tents. Howard Carter, of Tutankhamen fame, found some needlepoint in the cave of a Pharaoh who had lived around 1500 BC. Modern needlepoint descends from the canvas work in tent stitch ...
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English Country Dance
A country dance is any of a very large number of social dances of a type that originated in the British Isles; it is the repeated execution of a predefined sequence of figures, carefully designed to fit a fixed length of music, performed by a group of people, usually in couples, in one or more sets. The figures involve interaction with your partner and/or with other dancers, usually with a progression so that you dance with everyone in your set. It is common in modern times to have a "caller" who teaches the dance and then calls the figures as you dance. Country dances are done in many different styles. As a musical form written in or time, the contredanse was used by Beethoven and Mozart. Introduced to South America by French immigrants, Country Dance had great influence upon Latin American music as contradanza. The ''Anglais'' (from the French word meaning "English") or ''Angloise'' is another term for the English country dance. A Scottish country dance may be termed an . ...
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Renaissance Dance
Renaissance dances belong to the broad group of historical dances. During the Renaissance period, there was a distinction between country dances and court dances. Court dances required the dancers to be trained and were often for display and entertainment, whereas country dances could be attempted by anyone. At Court, the formal entertainment would often be followed by many hours of country dances which all present could join in. Dances described as country dances such as Chiarantana or Chiaranzana remained popular over a long period – over two centuries in the case of this dance. A Renaissance dance can be likened to a ball. Knowledge of court dances has survived better than that of country dances as they were collected by dancing masters in manuscripts and later in printed books. The earliest surviving manuscripts that provide detailed dance instructions are from 15th century Italy. The earliest printed dance manuals come from late 16th century France and Italy. The earliest da ...
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Entremet
An entremet or entremets (; ; from Old French, literally meaning "between servings") in French cuisine historically referred to small dishes served between courses but in modern times more commonly refers to a type of dessert. By the end of the Middle Ages, it had evolved almost entirely into dinner entertainment in the form of inedible ornaments or acted performances, often packed with symbolism of power and regality. In English it was more commonly known as a subtlety (also ''sotelty'' or ''soteltie'') and did not include acted entertainment, but most famously did have live blackbirds flying out of a pie, a scene immortalized in the folk song "Sing a Song of Sixpence". Originally an elaborate form of entertainment dish during the Late Middle Ages and the early modern period, an ''entremet'' marked the end of a course and could be anything from a simple frumenty (a type of wheat porridge) that was brightly colored and flavored with exotic and expensive spices, to elaborate mode ...
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Braille
Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are Blindness, blind, Deafblindness, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on Paper embossing, embossed paper or by using refreshable braille displays that connect to computers and smartphone devices. Braille can be written using a slate and stylus, a braille writer, an electronic braille notetaker or with the use of a computer connected to a braille embosser. Braille is named after its creator, Louis Braille, a Frenchman who lost his sight as a result of a childhood accident. In 1824, at the age of fifteen, he developed the braille code based on the French alphabet as an improvement on night writing. He published his system, which subsequently included musical notation, in 1829. The second revision, published in 1837, was the first Binary numeral system, binary form of writing developed in the modern era. Braille characters are formed using a ...
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Book Of Hours
The book of hours is a Christian devotional book used to pray the canonical hours. The use of a book of hours was especially popular in the Middle Ages and as a result, they are the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. Like every manuscript, each manuscript book of hours is unique in one way or another, but most contain a similar collection of texts, prayers and psalms, often with appropriate decorations, for Christian devotion. Illumination or decoration is minimal in many examples, often restricted to decorated capital letters at the start of psalms and other prayers, but books made for wealthy patrons may be extremely lavish, with full-page miniatures. These illustrations would combine picturesque scenes of country life with sacred images. Books of hours were usually written in Latin (the Latin name for them is ''horae''), although there are many entirely or partially written in vernacular European languages, especially Dutch. The closely related p ...
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