Lily's Magical Marketplace

Lily here.  So we're all packing for the annual Great Summer Adventure (tm) in which the humans drive up to Maine for a weekend and pretend they're living in the Middle Ages.  And this time, the four of us are getting drafted to be the booth models.

But first, we set up a little fair of our own, to show off all the things that will be on display this weekend.

First there's the food.  It's not a fair without food.

We've got bread and cheese and sausage and pickles and eggs and gingerbread and pasties.  The pasties even come in two flavors, and they definitely look good enough to eat.  All the food was made with polymer clay, except the display tower in the back.  Those are erasers on the Wellie Wisher snack stand that the human repainted.

Then there's my magical emporium booth stocked with potions and wands and potions ingredients.  And journals and pens to take notes on potion brewing.  I have a little workstation set up so I can brew things on demand.  

Polymer clay wands

44 bottles of various potions ingredients, made from little glass vials and scraps of floral arrangments

The open book is actually a miniature version of the Voynich manuscript.  No one really knows what it says, but there's a theory that it's a New World herbal written in an extinct language.  So I'm using it as one.

Obligatory photobomb

Tang Dynasty outfit for Kana

This is an outfit based on Tang Dynasty (690-900AD) costumes for women.  It consists of an under-robe of very lightweight cream silk.  The sleeves of the robe fall over the hands.  The skirt is very full and ties just under the arms over the bust.  Alas, Kana does not actually have a bust, so the skirt keeps falling down.

I used four different types of kimono silk to make this outfit, one for the robe, one for the collar and scarf, and 2 for the skirt.  I had to dig through a lot of my silk stash to find these since color choices for Tang Dynasty outfits don't match color choices for modern kimono.

No, this is not a kimono.   No, this is also not a hanbok.  And no, this is not a qipao or cheongsan.

Yes, this is based on historical patterns for Chinese clothing.

'But why does it look like a hanbok or a kimono?'

That's because China was a very cosmopolitan place in 700AD, and emissaries from surrounding countries (including Japan and Korea) took a lot of cultural inspiration from the Tang Dyansty.  Including writing systems and fashion.

Tres Rich Heures de Duc Barry

Kana desu.  Here we are again with myself and Shep as the official spokesdolls for Jinjia Mixed Goods at any and all SCA events our human attends.  We were up in Maine this past weekend at the Great Northeaster War, and we just got back.  I'm in another new yukata that has pink, white, and silver balls on a black background.  Shep is less than pleased because our human stuffed her into a dress to show off the belts and journals and quill pens for sale.  It's probably a good thing our human made sure Shep didn't have any weapons with her this time.

(We will also not mention the number of times someone was sure Shep was completely evil and out to kill them.  It's her eyes, I think.  Don't tell her I said that.)

Shepard:  The dress is fine.  The hair clip is not.
Kana:  BUT IT HAS A TINY ITTY BITTY PAPER CRANE ON IT!  How can you not like it?!
Shepard:  Because I'm not you.  I bet the human would give you one too if you asked.  Or didn't ask.
Kana:  She tried already and couldn't get it in my hair because it's pulled back too tight.  And she wouldn't let me take my hair down...

But, now that I have found my glasses (I can't read anything without them), it's time to show off the main attraction:  Tres Rich Heures de Duc Barry

Our human made this right before we left, and she kept playing with it the entire weekend.  I hardly had any time to read it myself.  Please do admire the blue leather cover.  It's a light gloveweight leather in royal iridescent blue, and the picture does not do it justice.

(Yes, that is a jar full of paper cranes.  No, our human will not run a raffle to guess how many cranes are in it because then she would have to count them.  By our best estimate, there's something like 2700 cranes in there.)

And  TA-DA!  This has 92 pages of illuminations and text, including the calendar in the very beginning.  It didn't photograph well, so our human isn't showing it here.  This little book has the full calendar, the first section of text, and after that, every full page illumination that the real book has.  The blue of the cover matches the blue in the illustrations perfectly.

 

What do you think?  If you want a copy for yourself, I suggest you contact our human at jinjia.mixed.goods@gmail.com or through her etsy shop here for a custom order, because I'm not going to give up my copy.