Peerage Cloak - Finished

It only took a few months.Well. At least it didn't take a full year.
Back in February I started planning a piece that would go on a peerage cloak. The recipient already had the peerage (and two more!), he just wanted to add the Order of Defense symbol to the cloak that displayed his Pelican and Knighthood. He also wanted it to be shiny.
I'd gotten somewhere in April, but as so often happens things came up, and I had taken on a project a bit more time consuming than I expected ( I would never.)

So we swing around the fall, and I decide that this cloak is getting done in time for the Rapier K&Q tournament, which lights a fire under me.

In the last post, so long ago, I had decided how I was going to create the chain. I was still a little worried that the wool would look unfinished next to the gold thread, but once I had the outline in place I think things really came together. And if I had tried to do the whole thing gold I think I would still be cursing about this project sometime next year.

Next I sketched in the swords. Even though my plan was to applique the swords on separately, I wanted to make sure they were the right size, so I just embroidered them directly inside the chain. I left off the extra fiddly details - the cross guards and swept hilts. There was no way I was going to be able to applique something that thin, so those were going on afterwards.
In hindsight, I think I should have just done the swords entirely on the cloak. I was trying to avoid pokey bits on the inside of the cloak as much as possible, and also trying to not carry around 20 lbs of fabric when I could help it, but I don't think it saved me any real time.

At this point I cut everything out with tiny scissors, leaving about a quarter inch of fabric around the edges. Then I spent so much time fray checking the back and tucking in all those edges. (So Period!) Because the edges were so narrow and the linen so fray-y, in that way only linen can be, I didn't trust things to not unravel if only the applique were holding it together.
I think this made the actual applique easier, but I'm not really sure.
The swords were thin enough that they were a real pain, and there wasn't enough embroidered material to fully cover the white on the edges. So in addition to adding the small details, I went around all the borders in a matching red wool. From a distance I don't think you can tell it's there, other than that the lines look much cleaner.

The sword blades are wobblier than I would like, but straighter than some other straight lines I've done in goldwork. Overall, once it's worn, I'm happy with the effect. Trying to take a nice picture of a pile of wool turns out to be kind of difficult.

Of course, I don't have a picture of it being worn, so you'll have to take my word for it for now.

I'm super excited to have this done and in the hands of its owner, and I learned a lot for next time.

King's and Queen's Rapier Champs

Lupold, Caine, Remy, and Malocchio receive words from their Majesties before the Final Four

I am not going to have as many words as several of my friends do, but I think it's important for me to have some.

Remy and Thomas in the final 8. 

I went into this tournament with a lot of good feelings. I haven't been posting about practices, but I've been fighting well at them, and making a lot of good progress. I was optimistic that, for once, my brain would match my skill and I wouldn't think myself out of the tournament.
And it turns out, my optimism was correct!

Lupold and Remy in the final 4, in the longest legged battle.

Mind you, I also worked for that brain. I warmed up in a real way, not just some practice bouts. I ran around the parking lot a bit, did eastern martial arts forms (which will get my blood moving and calm my mind), stretched a lot, and made sure to keep all of that up right until the very last moment. And then once the pools started, I tried to never stop moving. I resisted the urge to watch my brother or my cadet, who were both in neighboring pools. I had a sort of soft focus going on, and managed to have adrenaline, but (mostly) not get the shaky come down parts it.
I ended up winning 7 of 11 matches in my pool, and none of the losses were easy ones. I felt like the others in my pool were worried about me as an opponent. And more importantly, I felt like they should be.
I learned a variety of things from my losses, and will work all of that into my game. And although I was not able to get out of my pool, I was very happy with my performance.

And that was just the beginning of an astoundingly good day. The sweet sixteen was filled with people I care about, all doing wonderful things with swords, all being great people. I watched my brother, Malocchio, climb the ranks, alongside two good friends. I watched them ferociously fight each other, and love every second of it.

Malocchio and Lupold were in the finals together, and I couldn't help thinking about the years it took to get to this place, and watching the newer generation really come into its own. And Lupold won. And then, Malocchio was chosen as Queen's Champion. I'm told, with enthusiasm.

Malocchio and Remy fight in the final 8

And all throughout watching Malocchio win fight after fight I knew that he was going to be receiving a writ for the Order of Defense at the end of the day. And he definitely showed how much he deserved that.

In addition to all the expected tournament and court related goodness, I watched several moving ceremonies in which fencers I respect took on dependents. I'm certain that all of those pairings are going to go great places, and I can't wait to see what those places are.

Lupold defeats Caine in the final 8

I'm already looking forward to next year. Thanks to the rapier community for being awesome.

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!