Making some good progress on Muirwood. I’d like to thank my niece, Jenna, for her helpful feedback on the first few chapters. She’s a teenager and I asked her to critique it to see how well I was communicating my ideas. So far so good. Being a history major myself, when I talk about life during the Middle Ages, I want to make sure I communicate it realistically and not take for granted that my readers may or may not know a lot about it. I’ve had fun doing some research on lavenders (those who did laundry during medieval times – the plant was named after them), squires (and esquires), armigers, knights, etc. Another thing I want to get right is the clothing. I am not planning to spend a lot of time describing the clothing of the period. But I have spent some time researching the different period styles. There is a neat website Medieval Weapon Art (www.mwart.com) with great reproductions. I especially liked this one for Lia and Sowe:
The color would probably be blue (considering they use woad as a dye in Muirwood Abbey) or brown (undyed). This is the style of dress that Lia would wear as a helper in the Abbey kitchen. That’s all for now.
