Category Archives: Museums – Germany

…a new 12th century project in the making…

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Racaire - 12th century project - crusader - SCA heavy fighting tabardI haven’t made anything for myself for over one year, as my dear sweetheart pointed out to me recently. And the good husband that he is, he made me swear that I would start working on a project for myself and my own amusement next. …or as I did put it: as soon as possible. 😉

However much fun it is to make things for other people, one has always to be careful not to work oneself to the brink of creative exhaustion. Therefore I find it really important to do a fun project from time to time in order to recharge the internal batteries. It feels to me like a creative recharge every now and then gets me beyond the point of “just making a thing”. It enables me to go one step further – to open my mind for inspiration, to allow myself to get creative and to execute techniques and patterns I haven’t tried yet. Yes, in my opinion inspiration is a very important part of every creative process and project but it is also a very fragile flower which needs some occasional pampering. And to work oneself into a burn out doesn’t really help anyone as the recovery process can take quite some time. I am glad that my sweetheart takes such a good care of me and reminds me to take a break once in a while. Continue reading →

Medieval Pelican inspiration for embroidery .1

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Racaire - medieval inspired Pelican - badge - medieval embroideryDuring the last days I was searching for a new medieval pelican inspiration for my current embroidery project. Well, what shall I say – finding a new inspiration is often difficult enough but if you are looking for something special, it can appear to be even more challenging.

Fully aware of this fact, I gathered my favorite books about embroidery around me, sat down and went through my books in order to find a new medieval pelican inspiration for my current 14th century hood project for my friends pelican elevation.

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My husbands 13th century under tunic – about my medieval inspiration

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2015 - Racaire - my husbands 13th century tunic - 13th century under tunic - 12th century wedding clothingNew inspiration for our hobby can be quite difficult to find but some books really make a difference. Like the one in which I found the inspiration for my husbands new 13th century under tunic.

Since I started with this hobby, which was more then 10 years ago, I have been searching for interesting and inspiring books. But well, with every new book purchase for my book collection I always take a chance.

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12th century embroidery – Saint Michaels 12th century face finished – sneak peek.10

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12th century embroidery – Saint Michael and the Dragon – sneak peek.8Yesterday I made again some good progress concerning my “12th century embroidery – Saint Michael and the Dragon“. 😀

It was really a hard struggle with the thread, the needle and the fabric but finally Saint Michael got his 12th century face. I am very happy and also very proud of how it turned out.

When you compare the original outlines at the picture at the top left with the embroidery underneath, you will see that the final embroidery looks really very different...

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12th century embroidery – Saint Michael and the Dragon

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Racaire_Cologne_Schnuetgen-Museum_2013

At the moment I am working at the next posting for the current Craft with Racaire project – the “fast & easy pouch tutorial“. I will post it soon but it’s not finished yet… 😀

Therefore I decided to tell you more about my newest project and to show you some sneak peeks of it – of my new:

12th century embroidery project
“Saint Michael and the Dragon”

During my Mission “Medieval Berlin” I saw a beautiful embroidered wallhanging from the 12th century on display in one of the museums. This period wallhanging inspired me to try a “new” medieval embroidery technique.

But first things first – here are the first photos of my new medieval embroidery project – enjoy! 😀
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Mission “Medieval Berlin” – the forgotten 14th century Queen from France

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Racaire in BerlinAs I promised, I already took a first look through my photos from Berlin. At the very first day I visited the “Tiergarten Berlin” (the zoo) and the nearby aquarium.

Knowing that you would prefer to see some of my medieval photos first, I decided to skip this day for now and to start with day 2 and my very first museum visit.

What shall I say – it was truly amazing! I already found some lovely medieval art at the very first museum I visited. I spend some hours looking through the medieval collection and took about 2.300 photos. Well, I admit that this count surprised me but I think it is not unusual for me… *lol*

I decided to start with a very lovely piece of medieval art on display in the very first museum I visited:

The “forgotten 14th century Queen from France”

Racaire_Mission “Medieval Berlin” - the forgotten 14th century Queen from France

Like always I walked through the medieval collection, looking at the museum information, taking photos and suddenly there she was, just looking at me.

A beautiful and delicate face, a severe but loving look – every inch exquisite and gorgeous. She looked truly like a queen and after a short look at the museum information I could say for sure that she was a “Royal Donatrix”. She was indeed a 14th century queen from France.

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Mission “Medieval Berlin” accomplished :D

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I am back again! …and I am very happy to say that I accomplished my “Mission Medieval Berlin”! *happydance* 😀

I had a rather long “wish-list” of museums which I wanted to visit. Therefore my time schedule for Berlin was very tight.
4 very long days filled with a lot of walking and yes, my feet still hurt! But there is just one word to describe my trip: Awesome!

I was very busy in Berlin. I visited 7 museums and the zoo & aquarium. I also saw “Checkpoint Charlie”, the “Brandenburger Tor”,… just to name a few places. I even found time to meet two friends who live in Berlin. We spend a wonderful time together.

My mission “Medieval Berlin” was a full success. I took about 6.000 photos in this 4 days!
Most of this photos were taken at the local museums and many of them are of extant medieval pieces on display! I am especially excited about the photos I took of the extant pieces of lovely medieval embroidery… 😀

…and I even took some nice photos of Berlin too. It will take some time to go through all this photos. I am very looking forward to showing you some of the highlights and to tell you more about the interesting museum catalogues I found.

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Mission “Medieval Berlin”

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I am so excited! I am going on a trip to Berlin!

My motto for this trip will be: Mission “Medieval Berlin”!

*gosch* 4 days filled with sightseeing, the zoo, “Checkpoint Charlie”,… – well, you know, all the “modern stuff” one can’t avoid when visiting Berlin. …and definitely as many museums and “ancient and medieval stuff” as possible! 😉 

…I am sorry, but the following content is restricted to logged in members of my blog.

Best regards Racaire

14th century Floral Head Bands

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14th century Floral Head Bands

As some of you might have noticed over the last years, I really love visiting museums. And even more than visiting museums I love to take pictures of the beautiful medieval things on display in museums.

Regardless if it is about medieval fabrics, medieval wood-work, medieval jewelry,… or medieval embroidery. You can take me to a museum and leave me alone in the medieval collection.

I will happily entertain myself by taking several photos of nearly every medieval thing on display. It is especially dangerous to leave me alone with a good 12th century, 13th century or 14th century collection. Some of my friends already found out that I & and my DSLR don’t get far in medieval collections. 😉

But back to the main topic:

“14th century floral head bands”.

I would like to start with a ‘heartily thank you’ to Sarah for her recent comment on my posting about the Running Stitch – thank you very much Sarah!

In this comment she mentioned floral head bands from the Codex Manesse. I suddenly thought – “hmmm, floral head bands based on the Codex Manesse?” And I was suddenly reminded on some lovely examples of floral head bands I “run into” last year. Therefore I started to dig through my museum pictures and voila! I found even more lovely pictures of floral head bands. 🙂

I hope that by sharing the following pictures and especially the detail pictures and in-depth information I can provide some new and additional inspiration for you and Sarah. Lets start with the exquisite fountain figure which already greeted you at the beginning of this posting. You might ask – what has this 14th century fountain figure to do with 14th century floral head bands? Well, let’s take a closer look:

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