I haven't been able to do much calligraphy in the last week, but what I did do was a bit of practise on the Gods of Snow quote - I needed to get inky.
This morning I had an idea, and wacked my morning's practise so far in the scanner and sent it to Meisterin Helene Katarina.

I was asking Helene whether she thought the verticals were straight enough, evenly spaced enough, and the diamonds touching the lines correctly - so that I could consider myself sufficiently good at that particular exercise and move onto learning the Bedford Hours and Psalter version of Gothic Textura Quadrata. (I had just wacked some practise work on the scanner for her to see - the x-heights aren't ruled consistently!)

I know the work is not perfect (it's legible!), but I've practised so very much and for so long at this particular exercise that I've run out of ideas of how to improve it further - except by dropping it and letting myself improve by moving on and letting my general skill level improve as I go along. And perhaps re-visit it down the line. I do have a very strong belief that I must get the fundamentals correct.

She pointed out that Marc Drogin's version of the quote didn't use 'quadrants' for the tops of Ns and Ms and bottoms of Us. To get my version like his, I'm gonna have to change. Also that my diamonds didn't have the 'ticks'.

She also sent the copy to Reggie Ezell http://www.reggieezell.com/
*faint* He may or may not reply as he is very busy and I am a mere iota of a scribe, but I shall be watching my mail box very carefully over the next few days!