Wednesday May 10, 7 PM – 8 PM, with socializing time on either end of that.
Introduction to Mead Making
165 W 66th Street #4E, Manhattan. Ask for Alec Story
Learn how to make the quintessential medieval drink, mead! We will focus on modern mead-making, and also discuss historical context and practice. A small number of one gallon take-home kits will be provided for interested students.
Instructor Lorefather Þorfinnr Hróðgeirsson focuses on historical beverage research, and has been a modern homebrewer for over a decade.
The Canton of Appleholm invites you to join us for our casual weekend renaissance-dance workshop: Taci e Balla — shut up and dance!
On Sunday, April 16, we will meet at 3 PM at a local dance studio, Bridge For Dance, 2726 Broadway, between 104th and 105th Streets, in studio 2 on the 3rd floor. (Located on the east side of Broadway, upstairs from McDonalds, a minute’s walk from the #1 train at 103rd Street.)
We’ll continue to practice and expand our repertoire of sixteenth-century bransles (pronounced “brawls”). These are easy dances to learn; newcomers and first-timers are welcome!
We have the dance studio rented for just one hour, so arrive a few minutes early and be ready to dance!
Masking strongly encouraged. Please be aware of a significant accessibility limitation: there are three flights of stairs and this site lacks an elevator.
This event is free. All are welcome to join us. No Society membership or previous experience required. Modern attire; come as you are. Feel free to RSVP or just show up.
After the dancing, folks who wish to socialize may move to a nearby shop for coffee and nibbles.
English pen and watercolor painting, Tarantella dancers, by Gatta, 1828.
Although the SCA complies with all applicable laws to ensure the health and safety of our event participants, we cannot eliminate the risk of exposure to infectious diseases during in-person events. By participating in the in-person events of the SCA, you acknowledge and accept the potential risks. You agree to take any additional steps to protect your own health and safety and those under your control as you believe to be necessary.
Please join us on Monday, April 24th, at 7pm for the Appleholm Commons, our canton’s quarterly business meeting (and online social gathering), online via Google Meet.
We’ll be discussing plans for upcoming activities and future events. If there’s anything you’d like to discuss, you can email the Seneschal to put it on the agenda, or just bring it up during the discussion period.
Our meetings are open to everyone. No Society membership or previous experience required. Modern attire; come as you are.
As previously announced elsewhere, the Crown Province is hosting a Crafts Day on Saturday, April 8 from 11 AM – 3 PM, just north of the city in New Rochelle, easily accessible by MetroNorth, and it would be lovely to see some members of the canton up there.
Hands-on activities will include painting fabric heraldic banners, as well as period tabletop games, leather crafts, calligraphy and Illumination.
There’s a MetroNorth train on the New Haven line that departs Grand Central at 10:05, stops at 125th Street & Park Avenue at 10:15, and reaches New Rochelle at 10:40; additional trains follow every thirty minutes. (The train costs $8.50 each way.) From the station it’s just a two-block walk to the New Rochelle Public Library, where we’ve reserved the meeting room.
This event is free. All are welcome to join; no Society membership or previous experience required.
Period clothing is welcome, but entirely optional; come as you are.
No food is allowed onsite, but there are a couple of casual lunch spots within walking distance.
Although the SCA complies with all applicable laws to ensure the health and safety of our event participants, we cannot eliminate the risk of exposure to infectious diseases during in-person events. By participating in the in-person events of the SCA, you acknowledge and accept the potential risks. You agree to take any additional steps to protect your own health and safety and those under your control as you believe to be necessary.
We had a great turnout for yesterday’s dance practice, with ten people kicking up their heels in a colonnaded pavilion in Riverside Park. It was lovely to see all these smiling faces, including visitors from Brokenbridge and Settmour, as well as a local pedestrian who wandered by and joined in.
We look forward to returning to this area in the future, but our next session will be indoors again — join us at 3 PM on Sunday, April 16th, Bridge For Dance, 2726 Broadway, between 104th and 105th Streets, in studio 2 on the 3rd floor.
The Canton of Appleholm invites you to join for a casual weekend outing to one of our many world-class museums.
On Sunday, April 23, at 1 PM, we’ll visit the Cloisters to view the springtime gardens, which have been planted with a variety of species reflecting medieval practices and ideas of nutrition, medicine, and beauty. We’ll also traverse their indoor galleries, where they are hosting a special exhibition of late-medieval objects from middle-class European households.
We’ll gather in the park across the street from the main entrance and enter as a group. Our visit is expected to last for two or three hours. Afterwards, folks who are hungry may walk down the hill to a local restaurant.
(If you’re new to the Cloisters, it’s New York City’s immersive museum of medieval art and architecture, constructed from several medieval European buildings which were purchased piecemeal a hundred years ago and relocated to upper Manhattan, then filled with a variety of period artworks.)
To reach the Cloisters:
By train, take the A train to 190th Street, then use the elevators to exit on Fort Washington Avenue, and transfer to the uptown M4 for its final stop. Alternately, you can follow the path north into the park for about ten minutes. (Note that while maps may suggest that you could take the A or 1 trains to Dyckman Street and walk into the park from there, you should be prepared for a very, very steep climb up the 180-foot hillside.)
By bus, take the uptown M4 bus to its last stop.
By car, navigate to 99 Margaret Corbin Drive and look for public parking space in or around Fort Tryon Park.
Residents of New York State with a valid ID may pay what you will; for out-of-state visitors, the museum’s admission fee is $30.
The venue very strongly recommends masking. Unfortunately this site is not wheelchair-friendly due to the numerous stairs throughout the building.
All are welcome to join us. No Society membership or previous experience required. Modern attire; come as you are. Feel free to RSVP or just show up.
(Cloisters photograph by Christopher Down, licensed under Creative Commons.)
Although the SCA complies with all applicable laws to ensure the health and safety of our event participants, we cannot eliminate the risk of exposure to infectious diseases during in-person events. By participating in the in-person events of the SCA, you acknowledge and accept the potential risks. You agree to take any additional steps to protect your own health and safety and those under your control as you believe to be necessary.
The Canton of Appleholm once again invites you to join us for a casual weekend renaissance-dance workshop: Taci e Balla — shut up and dance!
On Sunday, April 2, we will meet at 3 PM at the newly-reopened pavilion adjacent to Grant’s Tomb, on Riverside Drive at 122nd Street. It’s still cool out, with Sunday’s weather predicted to be sunny and 50°F, so throw on some warm layers and come enjoy the amazing river view!
We’ll be reviewing the same sixteenth-century bransles we’ve learned over the last few weeks. These are easy dances to learn; newcomers and first-timers are welcome!
This event is free. All are welcome to join us. No Society membership or previous experience required. Modern attire; come as you are. Feel free to RSVP or just show up.
The pavilion, and the adjacent memorial, is a National Park, open from 9–5 Wednesday through Sundays. The site is level and accessible. Alas, the public restrooms are still closed “due to COVID restrictions,” and the nearby playground bathroom is also closed at this time, so we’ll have to scope out the nearest facilities for emergency purposes.
Directions — and see below for map:
Subway: The closest stations are the #1 to 125th Street or 116th Street. It’s about a 10 minute walk from either; the path from 116th is downhill, while the route from 125th involves climbing a steep hill.
Bus: Take the M5 bus to Riverside and 122nd Street, which is immediately outside the pavilion (downtown) or across the memorial plaza (uptown).
Driving: There’s lots of on-street parking along Riverside Drive immediately in front of the pavilion.
Although the SCA complies with all applicable laws to ensure the health and safety of our event participants, we cannot eliminate the risk of exposure to infectious diseases during in-person events. By participating in the in-person events of the SCA, you acknowledge and accept the potential risks. You agree to take any additional steps to protect your own health and safety and those under your control as you believe to be necessary.
Once again, the Canton of Appleholm invites you to join us for a casual weekend renaissance-dance workshop: Taci e Balla — shut up and dance!
On Sunday, March 12, we will meet at 3 PM at a local dance studio, Bridge For Dance, 2726 Broadway, between 104th and 105th Streets, in studio 2 on the 3rd floor. (On the east side of Broadway, upstairs from McDonalds, a minute’s walk from the #1 train at 103rd Street.)
This week we’ll continue to practice and expand our repertoire of sixteenth-century bransles (pronounced “brawls”). These are easy dances to learn; newcomers and first-timers are welcome!
We have the dance studio rented for just one hour, so arrive a few minutes early and be ready to dance!
Masking strongly encouraged. Please be aware of a significant accessibility limitation: there are three flights of stairs and this site lacks an elevator.
This event is free. All are welcome to join us. No Society membership or previous experience required. Modern attire; come as you are. Feel free to RSVP or just show up.
After the dancing, folks who wish to socialize may move to a nearby shop for coffee and nibbles.
Wedding Dance in a Barn, by Brueghel the Younger, 1620.
Although the SCA complies with all applicable laws to ensure the health and safety of our event participants, we cannot eliminate the risk of exposure to infectious diseases during in-person events. By participating in the in-person events of the SCA, you acknowledge and accept the potential risks. You agree to take any additional steps to protect your own health and safety and those under your control as you believe to be necessary.
The Crown Province of Østgarðr invites you to join us for a weeknight crafting workshop to explore pre-modern skills in a hands-on setting.
On Thursday, March, 16, at 7 PM we’ll gather at a home on the Upper West Side, at 255 W 105th Street, Apt 21. (Northwest corner of Broadway, above the Ellington Restaurant, two blocks from the #1 train at 103rd St.) This month’s activity is a make-and-take weaving workshop:
Weaving Writ Large: Using twentieth-century sock-loop potholder looms as swatching tools to explore the weaving structures found in pre-modern historical fabrics.
The study of weaving presents us with a blizzard of terminology used to describe weaving structures, and when we look at examples of woven fabric, the small scale of the threads can make it difficult to see how they’re interlaced. But by weaving jumbo fibers on a small peg loom, we can produce giant-scale swatches that replicate the structure of fabrics produced in the pre-historic, classical and medieval periods, allowing us to more clearly see and understand the differences produced by various tabby and twill patterns.
We’ll examine samples, look at the weaving charts used to produce them, and then everyone will have an opportunity to use those techniques to weave 7″ or 10″ potholders of your own to take home, using the same stretchy loops and metal peg looms you might have played with as children.
The venue requires masking. There will be an open window and an air filter running. A passenger elevator is available to reach the second floor.
The session is expected to last for about two hours. Some folks may choose to go to dinner in the neighborhood afterwards.
This event is free. All are welcome to join us. No Society membership or previous experience required. Modern attire; come as you are. Feel free to RSVP or just show up.
The photograph below shows some of the samples to be discussed. Top Row: 3/1 ribbed twill; 2/1 twill; 3/1 broken twill. Center: 2/2 houndstooth twill; 2/2 broken chevron twill; 2/2 chevron twill; 2/2 diamond twill. Bottom: plain weave with doubled warp; gauze; 3/3 twill.
Although the SCA complies with all applicable laws to ensure the health and safety of our event participants, we cannot eliminate the risk of exposure to infectious diseases during in-person events. By participating in the in-person events of the SCA, you acknowledge and accept the potential risks. You agree to take any additional steps to protect your own health and safety and those under your control as you believe to be necessary.
Thanks to everyone who came out today for Appleholm’s back-to-back dance practice and gaming session — it was lovely to see everyone in person and have an opportunity for some casual fun.
I wasn’t organized about snapping photos so didn’t capture all nineteen smiling faces — maybe next time! We’ll be dancing again on March 12 in this same location. and perhaps we’ll do another gaming group in April?
