Our 10th event!
Organised by the Michelham Bowmen, this is a great little event in a beautiful location.
Despite rain and wind at various points over the weekend, we still managed to dye our new shiny spun silk and more of our new range of tapestry wools. Everyone who stopped by to watch the dyeing and discuss our colours seemed really pleased with what they saw and learnt.
http://www.michelhambowmen.co.uk/
http://sussexpast.co.uk/properties-to-discover/michelham-priory
Herstmonceux was our first three-day event. Unfortunately Saturday was incredibly wet, but we managed to keep as dry as possible around the fire and it improved greatly on Sunday and Monday. We provided on-going demonstrations of natural dyeing over the whole event, and created a beautiful range of colours.
Herstmonceux castle in Sussex is a beautiful location for such a large festival. There is so much going on, from jousting to a castle seige. We were part of a big medieval market, right in the centre of the action.
We were very pleased to meet another dyer, from Italy, and share our dfferent methods of obtaining the best colours. He had a fantastic portable dye vat system too!
Some of the hottest days of the year! We were impressed by the festival management providing cooling and entertaining fixed water sprays and their concern for everyone.
We were in the market next to a Merrie Noyse, a minstrel group who we accompanied in the main tent with some Tudor playford dances. This was enjoyable for all of us, its not often we get to dance for a full band!
Our colours had a very good reception, by both the public and the other living history participants.
For one of us, Michelham also brought back many childhood memories of being on the archaeological excavations here, so it was lovely coming back and seeing how the site has changed.
Our first festival! This was terrifying and exciting in equal measure.
The scale of Tewkesbury is very exciting, a very large number of stalls, two living history camps and a big battle.
Everyone we spoke to was very kind and encouraging, and we are so glad it went well. We will certainly be back for more in the future!