Pennsic XLV

Pennsic was warm, and humid. But that didn't stop me from having a great time, and being very busy.

I went to command meetings with Countess Marguerite as the leaders of the Handsome Boys. These were generally fast and organized. And more often than not, the plans that were put in place by General Malocchio were very successful.

I moved a lot of hay bales, and so did many other people. Thank you to everyone who helped out with that - without you we would never have gotten to fight.

I went to a class on padded embroidery. The kit was fantastic, but the class was far too short to get to everything, and unfortunately the bits I'd hoped to see (detached button stitch around wire frames) were all at the end. Hopefully the kit will prove useful on its own.

I did some heralding, mostly behind the scenes, but I read a little.

I played music vaguely in public and it went ok, and want to see about starting to get involved playing music for dancing. Because who needs free time.

I fought my fellow Handsome Boys for our annual Handsomest Boy prize. I'm actually not terribly pleased with my fighting in that tournament, but the important part is that we continue to go together every year and celebrate the awesome people in our number. Congratulations to Urraka and Catalina!

I slogged through a long, late battle on Monday. I spent most of my time up at the castle with the Handsome Boy and Calivers, and generally speaking we had a delightful, friendly time. The flag traded hands in a way that we expected, but we were always able to get it back. We managed to not lose anyone to the heat - people took breaks, but no one was ever out for the battle.
I was occasionally sent further down the line the orchard, and helped with a good push, and stopped a break through in our line.
If not for the ridiculous holds and how late we started I would have come out of this battling feeling only good things about my performance and the performance of my unit.

I ran through Tuesday's battle. The speed certainly made up for Monday's pain. Six total minutes fighting, with not a single hold. It was fast, it was furious, and I really enjoyed it. Being the defenders first was a little disheartening - they did it so quickly! We never got to rez! But it turns out that's just how the battle works. We did amazing when we were on the offense, and tore through their lines. And we did it 46 seconds faster than they did!
I think this could be a really fun battle to run several times in row. It's faster even than the field battle, and that could make for some interesting adjustments in tactics as you went.

I was really looking forward to the woods on Thursday, and was sad about all of the weather problems. I'm kind of glad we didn't do the backup battle, partially because I was done with moving hay bales by then. Next year, hopefully, we can get our woods on again.

I was frustrated by Friday's field battle. Our first run had a lot of small mistakes that added up. We spread out too much on our end, and we paid the price. The second run went much better, but we still couldn't pull it out. On the third go, the troops were moved around. It was now the Handsome Boys job to push instead of hold, and once again they pushed gloriously.

I did pickups with a lot of great people - although not as many as I may have liked. That's been a common theme I've heard.

I fought in the Ansteorra tournament. I didn't do as well as I would have liked, but I had good opponents (all from Ansteorra!) and good feedback. Primarily - watch my distance, and make sure I turn my hand all the way to seconda or quarta when gaining the blade. Both of these mistakes got me killed. Both of them are fixable.

I fought in the By the Book Tournament for the very first time. I used Fabris, of course, and I was doing quite well. Unfortunately, the heat of the day and some visible lightning caused all battlefield activities to be canceled before we could finish the tournament. Next year I'll definitely be doing this one again.

Best of all, I watched people I love and respect be recognized in a variety of ways. Lupold and Sorcha were brought into the OGR. Dionisio and Doroga were made OSRs. The Handsome Boys were recognized by induction to the Blue Tyger Legion (which will have its own post when I figure out the words).

Vigil Book for Matthias

It's been a busy summer for me!

Once again I was asked to create a vigil book cover - this time for a friend who was getting his Knighthood!

The original design was based on the motifs that were going on a new tunic, also for the occasion. Those motifs were in turn based on the sorts of designs you would often find in German brick stitch as well as Austrian roof tiles.

Image from A Stitch Out of Time

The belt was an obvious choice, this being a knighting and all. No part of me wanted to try to embroider a unicorn in the time allotted to me, so my initial plan was to include shooting stars. Unfortunately I started to run out of time, and ultimately I was worried they would make things too busy, anyway.

I knew purple was a requirement for the ground fabric. I found a wonderful linen - thin enough to make a good cover while still hefty enough for the heavy embroidery I had in mind.
Because of the geometric nature of the design I decided to draw onto parchment paper so I could the lines exactly correct. It was, as usual, a pain to remove, and I'm not certain this time if it was the right route. It's harder to remove the paper from linen than it was from velvet or wool, where the pile helps get the paper off.

All the embroidery is silk - for the belt I used a few shades of Splendor, and the geometric portions were done using a thicker pearl thread that I got at Gulf Wars last year.

Non metal embroidery completed

Silk shading and gold work, while often found together, are not often found with German designs (that I've found. I admit I haven't looked very hard), but I thought it would look good - and would be an easy (in that I'm practiced at those methods) way to get a good looking book.

I'm very happy with how the shading came out - considering I only used three colors, I was worried it would end up too rigid looking. The belt did come out a little...non euclidean. I would change the shape of where it wraps around itself if I went back to do it again.

The biggest problem that I had with this was that the frame wasn't holding the center of the piece as tight as I would want. I had to retighten if regularly, and I still ended up with a lump in the middle of the belt, which you can see in the finished picture below.

For the goldwork I used passed thread as the buckled and the bits inside the geometric areas. I'm very happy with how the buckle came out. The gold on the end of the belt is pearl purl, slightly stretched out. I was originally planning on using normal purl or bullion for that area, but I didn't have any with quite the right color gold to match the passing thread I used. I like the effect, so I'm ok with making the last minute change.
It doesn't really show in the pictures, but the entire belt is outlined in a very thing wire twist, including inside the holes. I think this is most apparent in that the belt seems more smooth in the the final picture than with just the needle painting done.

And finally, the finished product!

Silver Wheel Medallion

This medallion was commissioned by Countess Marguerite to go to Magdelena Carminante at SCA 50 Year.

It's done in the same setting as the Maunche medallion I previously made using Splendor silks on linen.

50th Year Tapestry

Going on right now is the celebration of the 50th year of our Society. Sadly, I'm not able to attend, but by all accounts there's an amazing collection of history at the event.

One thing that's stuck out at me is that Lady Jadwiga Wlodzislawska of the Middle Kingdom accomplished an absolutely stunning piece of embroidery for the event.

Year III of the Tapestry depicts the creation of the East Kingdom

She took inspiration from the Bayeux Tapestry and created a 50 panel tapestry of her own, depicting events from each year of the Society's existence. The idea is amazing, the worksmanship and research that she put into it is unfathomable to me. I highly suggest that you go visit her website and see all the panels, and her writeups for them. All images in this post are from that website.

Year L of the tapestry was finished before the year began, but depicts the creation of Avacal and the Masters of Defense.

Lady Jadwiga is truly an inspiration. Thank you for this art!

Vigil Book for Heather Rose

I was asked to create a girdle book cover for a vigil book. It was my first request for a vigil book, and I was very excited!
Christina Jenevra de Carvalhal created the book itself, and very kindly gave me very detailed directions on how to make a girdle book. Up to this point I had only made your more generic book cover.

The linen that Jenevra chose was very nice to embroider on, although the positioning required by a girdle book was a little bit of a pain. It needed to be right near the bottom to make use of the selvage edge.

I was in a rush for this one, so progress pictures didn't happen with any regularity.

The border is whipped chain stitch with satin stitch hearts. This was very difficult to keep straight in the hoop, but I mostly succeeded. The laurel wreath is also satin stitch. The device is done in split stitch with satin stitch rabbits. I then outlined the hearts and outside lines in gold passing thread. With that done it still looked like something was missing, so I added some very non period flourishes with gold purl. The pieces are a little long, so I'm not entirely sure how some of them will hold up to hard use.

I had measured the the front of the book before starting the embroidery, but it still ended up just a smidge taller than the book. Luckily, on a girdle book that's less of a problem. If this were a normal book cover with the top and bottom folded down, I would have had to do some reworking.

One thing that I didn't think about until it was almost too late was that the book needed a closure of some sort. Jenevra's directions were very clear about designing the embroidery to take a closure into account, but of course I didn't look at those until the embroidery was all done. I ended up braiding some matching floss and attaching it at the spine. It's not the fanciest closure, but it does do the job.
The actual covering of the book could certainly have gone smoother, despite the excellent directions. Part of my trouble was just time crunch, but the rest was a learning experience.

Congratulations, Heather!

Fencing Catchup

I went down to the Southern Region Fencing Practice and much melee was had, as well as a qualifying tournament for champs.

In the tournament I was out in three, but my two losses were the first and second placers. I fought Antonio first, and didn't get as warmed up as I might have wanted to. I was using buckler, which may or may not have been a good choice. He got me under my right arm, which as we'll see is a pattern that I need to work on.
We fought again later (I kept buckler, because I wanted to experiment some) and things went ok.
I did other pickups that were also a lot of fun.
Melee was mostly me, Sorcha, and Urraka working together on the far edge. We did a couple of really good things, and a couple of times where we pushed too hard or not enough.

All in all, it was a great time and even though it was very far away, I'm glad we made the trip. Thanks for hosting, Southern Region!

I had a good practice the next Monday. I fought case with a dagger, which I usually try to avoid, and I actually did quite well. I always knew that buckler vs case was a crutch, I just wasn't too worried about getting rid of it. But I won't argue if I've managed to by accident.

Then Roses happened. I showed up very briefly (it was a busy weekend!) but I got to fight in the champs qualifier again, as well as the melee tryouts. This time I fought four fights before I was out, but both of my losses were again under my right arm - and only one of those was a lefty. I again fought the first and second place finishers. This time while I lost to the first place, I won against the second, and I am very excited about that. I had surprise on my side, but I made use of it.

Melees this time we were split up based on our units, so I was with Urraka and Katsu (for the event was very Handsome Boy light, and out Southern folks are going to fight with the South this year). The teams seemed pretty evenly matched - we would go back and forth on who won. We started near an end, and the other side steamrolled everyone during the first fight. They were extremely aggressive and we weren't remotely ready for it. After that we were in the middle, and had to make choices about whether to push or not. There was one time we should have pushed but instead did the stop and fence thing that is always awful, but we fixed that in future times. All in all, I was quite happy with how things went.

One thing that I noticed between the two tournaments was that my between fights time was very different. At the regional practice I tried to be all calm and not be distracted by anyone around me - which was helped by the fact that most of the people who might distract me were running the tournament. And by the third fight I was shaky and having adrenaline problems. At Roses there were a whole bunch of people that I was talking to and we would communally rest between the bouts. And even though it was ridiculously hot out, I didn't end up shaky or anything. Although I was definitely tired by the fourth fight.
I'm not entirely certain there's a causal relationship here. I also had much longer fights at the regional. But it's something I want to keep an eye on.

Peerage Cloak - The Embroidery Part I

I may have bit off more than I could chew, but luckily I haven't had an angry triple peer come busting down my door yet.
Partially it is time consuming - lots of plunging gold ends and such - but mostly I got all procrastinatey on it. But no more! I have projects coming down the pipeline, and I'd love to have this done before I need to worry about them (note that seems quite unlikely, but a girl can dream).

So, the padded links on the chain are done, and I am looking into ways to make the other links work without having to completely fill them in with gold. It looks nice to have it fully gold, but I don't think I have it in me to do.



So I tried some things out, and decided that I liked the look of satin stitch. I am using wool because all of the rest of the cloak is in wool.


I'm working with every other link at the moment in case I decide to mix things up or run low on thread. Better to make it look planned!
Eventually everything will be outlined in gold, but that is the last step - if I play my cards right, I can do it in one piece!