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wyvern tales skip to main skip to sidebar saturday august 1 2015 signing off from blogging i am closing my blog because i find that a newsletter is a better way to communicate with everyone please drop by my web page www arelatestudio com and sign up to receive a monthly newsletter happy stitching nancy www arelatestudio com arelatestudio on etsy posted by nancy at 2 26 pm 1 comment thursday july 2 2015 playing cards jehan genevoy a printer in 16th century lyon france published a set of playing cards with wonderfully graphic figures i chose two of them charted and colored them and discovered what a stunning couple they make they work up nicely in cross stitch but i can also see them done in needlepoint perhaps as pictures or accent pillows the white backgrounds could be worked in a textured stitch which would accent the figures even more if you would like to see these in black and white and others from genevoy s playing cards see dover s book antique playing card designs playing cards appear to have been invented in china where in 1120 a document mentions a game involving ivory tablets with allegorical figures of the heavens mankind stars and cardinal points and virtues such as justice and benevolence paper cards first appeared in china in 1294 the country that invented paper and printing the spread of playing cards seems to have gone from china into india where a card game called dasavatura used cards depicting gods royalty animals and flowers this game spread into persia and egypt finally moving up the italian peninsula the naibi of 14th century italy depicted aspects of human life as well as mythological people such as the muses and apollo the planets the virtues and the sciences it was these pictorial and symbolic cards in combination with numerical cards that eventually evolved into the tarot numerical cards are modeled on arabic cards and were influenced by dice these entered europe via spain and the four suits and the royal cards of king queen and jack were added posted by nancy at 10 58 am no comments monday june 1 2015 fingers and feathers have you ever wondered how a designer decides on the size of the finished picture for my designs it comes down to fingers since everything is outlined in black and then colored in a feature common in medieval art all my fingers require 3 squares one flesh colored for the finger and one in black on each side to outline it sometimes delineating all the fingers will make the final design just too big in which case the poor person will be relieved of a finger or two feathers like fingers can only be reduced so far the narrowest feather needs the same space as a finger and will thereby determine the final size of the winged creature beyond fingers and feathers a design more or less tells me what size it should be what size suits the proportions of the original what size is not so huge that someone would never stitch it for example for my own pleasure i am working on 1 3 of a woodcut picture of basel which is going to be rather large assuming it ever gets finished i have stitched very large designs and enjoyed them but for the most part i think we all like something that we can count on finishing in a reasonable amount of time yes posted by nancy at 10 56 am no comments friday may 8 2015 arelate studio is back where have the last five years gone remember when you were young and summers lasted forever now i just blinked and suddenly it is 2015 but i have not been just lolling around eating bon bons i ve gotten a good start on the eternal book on 12th century norman sicily which hopefully will be finished before i die more on this research in a later post there is however some really good news for stitchers i have also been working on designing and there are now 100 cross stitch designs available from arelate studio and more are in the works with the new designs i decided to jump into web design and have created a new web site where you can find all my cross stitch charted designs and books www arelatestudio com everything is available in electronic format even the two pattern books here be wyverns and here be drolleries there are complete directions for ordering charts and or books i hope i ve made the web site both exciting and easy to use and i ve learned a lot trust me when i tell you that this cyber virgin had the dickens of a time on the steep learning curve of web designing please pass this information along to anyone who might be interested i look forward to meeting you all again after this blink in time nancy posted by nancy at 10 17 pm 4 comments saturday december 11 2010 christmas greens christmas is a wonderful conglomeration of roman viking germanic and victorian english traditions the early christian church assimilated many of these traditions from old midwinter sun festivals such as the roman saturnalia and our use of christmas greens reflects these early practices evergreens such as holly ivy and mistletoe decked the medieval house in the bleak days of midwinter bringing hope of renewed life to the darkest days of the year says sophie jackson in her wonderful book the medieval christmas the holly has ancient associations with good luck and protecting homes from thunderstorms with its red berries it also offered protection against witches and could detect evil spirits ivy for unknown reasons has always been thought of as female whereas holly was mainly considered male it was not as welcome in medieval homes possibly because ivy was worn as a crown by bacchus in the old sybaritic roman cult his chosen group of female companions the bacchae drank the juice made from ivy leaves which was supposedly intoxicating mistletoe is the most dramatically pagan of the holiday greens the celtic druids had great reverence for it especially if it was found growing on an oak tree from which it would be cut with a golden sickle mistletoe is the plant that killed the norse god balder frigg his mother wept for her son and it was her tears that became the white berries she instructed that anyone meeting under the mistletoe should do no harm to one another and to exchange a kiss something we still do today the decorated indoor christmas tree was not a tradition during the medieval period although it is likely that various outside trees were decorated during the season particularly fir trees christmas traditions are rich and fascinating please visit these web sites for much more information on christmas during the middle ages medieval christmas traditions tales of the middle ages christmas a medieval christmas christmas traditions in england during the middle ages how to cook medieval christmas feasts posted by nancy at 10 50 pm no comments labels christmas fir holly ivy mistletoe wednesday november 3 2010 the manesse codex and courtly love courtly love an ideal whereby a man of impeccable taste and behavior could love an unattainable lady of equal impeccability chastely passionately truly developed in france in the 12th century particularly under the patronage of the indefatigable eleanor of aquitane queen to two kings mother of two kings courtly love was expressed most strongly in the love songs of the troubadors and minnesangers the manesse codex written 1300 1315 in zurich and housed in heidelberg university is the most famous collection of these songs it is a representation of work by 140 poets writing in the middle high german lyric tradition its reknown is based largely on the 138 colored illuminations which show the songs authors doing courtly activities you can see all 138 of these pictures on the first web page listed below go to the button that says table of contents to access them the second site describes an upcoming exhibition in heidelberg of the manuscript manesse die mansesseche liederhandschrift 1300 1315 the codex manesse and the discovery of love communications and marketing h you can see on the second web page the original of my adaptation above which shows the minnesanger konrad von altstetten the illustrations have a slightly cartoonish feel to them which has made it interesting to adapt them to cross stitch patterns i have done this with 4 of the pictures adding some latin and creating for the most part my own color schemes although the originals use primary colors too posted by nancy at 7 20 pm no comments labels courtly love eleanor of aquitane heidelberg manesse minnesangers tuesday september 14 2010 spanish illumination 12th to 14th century the mozarabic influence on spanish illumination continued well into the 12th century wonderful architectural details of obvious arabic origin can be found in manuscripts this graceful double arch is adapted from the 12th century cardena beatus new york metropolitan museum of art to see pictures from this manuscript go to cardeña beatus and here are two of my favorite characters from the 12th century silos beatus london british library very early disco indeed at least their clothing was not made out of polyester to see pictures from this manuscript go to silos beatus why this fellow is playing a bird is beyond me by the 13th century however spain had seen a political and cultural change that brought it into the fold of continental christiandom this is vividly depicted in manuscript pictures where drolleries knights minstrels and other well known medieval motifs now appear here are two sweet drolleries from the 13th 14th century vidal mayor a collection of spanish law texts los angeles j paul getty museum alphonso x el sabio 1221 1284 king of leon and castile commissioned several well known stunning illustrated manuscripts on such topics as songs and games which give us a brilliant view into 13th century spain to see pictures from these manuscripts go to the cantigas de santa maria and alphonso x book of games home page and finally full blown continental medieval christianity appears in the form of the knight but even this knight from the 14th century libro de la confradia de caballeros de la luente burgos archivo municipal still retains some of that exotic mozarabic style we originally saw from six centuries earlier posted by nancy at 2 08 pm 2 comments labels alphonso x cardena beatus drolleries illumination libro de la confradia manuscript mozarabic silos beatus spain vidal mayor older posts home subscribe to posts atom about me nancy spies arelate studio maryland view my complete profile blog archive 2015 4 august 1 signing off from blogging july 1 june 1 may 1 2010 10 december 1 november 1 september 1 july 1 june 1 may 1 april 1 march 1 february 1 january 1 2009 5 december 3 october 2