Gifts for the taking of an Apprentice

So being apprenticed by not one, but two amazing Laurels that I have respected and admired for years will take a longer post, but for now, I wanted to get my act together with posting what I make.

While I worked away at a scroll assignment from my Baron (post to come) I needed something else to work on while the gouache dried. So I took a quote from Canterbury Tales and a page from the Macclesfield Psalter (I think. I can't find the link/source right now.) and decided to do a cute little piece for my Tailoring/Research Laurel, Mistress Astryda Borowska.

And I gotta practice my Gothic hand but look at my tiny knight!

Look at him! He's so SMALL. And I'm sorry the light is so bad. I was using the only lamp I had and it was terrible. I have a new lamp now and it's much better.

So with that piece done, I did a little sewn piece for my Illumination/Calligraphy Laurel, Master Harold von Auerbach.

Those are his arms! Aren't they great?

It was supposed to be a bookmark but the embroidery was too thick so I ended up fingerloop braiding and finishing it up to make it a marker/tie-on whatever thing. It's nice, but I really had no plan and it shows.

I got it all done in time for Baronial Birthday however, and I signed a lovely contract and was embarrassed to no end by complements. 

(Thanks to Lee for this picture!)

A coronet for Bianca

So I have this housemate, Bianca.

And she's one of those sneaky background people that gets things done. She remembers things and scoots around behind royal court taking care of stuff and she looks AMAZING doing it.

She was presented with a court baronetcy recently and at the last minute to boot. I offered up my services to make her a coronet.
And if that meant getting it done in 6 days then so be it.

(Bianca and I at the Met after going south for Ducal Challenge.)

Deciding on the height and shape of the coronet was the hardest part. I messaged Fortune constantly for tips, since she knows Bianca best and has much better taste than I.

I cut it with an X-acto knife but anything would work. I needed to use more than one sheet of plastic grid.

The small sheets of plastics were sewn together, over lapping by one. It passed the tugging and toddler test. (Gideon had a lot of fun playing with this.)

Bianca's heraldry features swans! So I had to draw them out and try to make them not look like ducks. (hint, it didn't work. But as she likes to say, she is a Swan Among Ducks (and it's true!))

I traced the coronet onto the fabric and used the crosses to mark where the swans would go.

Fun fact, I was getting sick when this was going down so I made sure to do every step for each swan as I went, just in case I ran out of time. So all the outlining happened for all the them before I did the filling. Split stitch shown here in white silk (on black wool/silk)

I was making good time so I began to fill them in with klosterstitch because it is the fastest and most secure stitch for something like this. 

I ran out and bought larger pearls, put them onto headpins and then threaded the head pins through the grid, bending the wire to behave and keep the form straight. It was pretty snug so I didn't hot glue this in. That gave me the opportunity to change the pearls if Bianca didn't like the slightly golden shade of the pearl.

I decided to put the seam at the top and whipped that together, folding the edge down and in. It worked really well actually. I had a lot of control with where the fabric was and was able to fudge parts where maybe my embroidery wasn't -quite- even. I also edged all the swans in gold and trimmed the top in the same gold cord. I -think- it's Jap 7, whatever that means. The label is handwritten on the little cards on the cord, and hard to make out. But it's SO shiny and nice I had to use it.

Added a bee for our household and eyelets for threading through ribbon/elastic cord (because I was still super nervous about it fitting. Much rather have her add a ribbon later than have Royalty try to put it on her and have the ties be off. Elastic was the way to go here.

And here she is looking fabulous! Going with a fabric coronet has been a great choice because she apparently gets headaches with heavy hats. I know from experience that the wool/silk blend is warm, but also really great at soaking up water/sweat. I'm confident it'll be comfy in the summer for her. But she knows if it's not, I'll get back to work for her.

I couldn't find a sewing tutorial for anything like this in SCA circles, so I hope this helps someone in a pinch.

Scrolls, scrolls!

A lot has happened.
And what that means is that I've not had time to write about amazing things happening.
We're going to start with easier things first.
I made a good amount of scrolls in these last few months.

The story of this 'A' from the Ramsey Psalter is that I had to do a 'D' earlier in the summer for Master Harold, and each 'D' I did met with a disastrous end, from being sneezed on (scattering paint everywhere), to dropping my brush (scattering paint everywhere) to using older painter's tape that left huge globs of glue on the edge (which I, in my foolishness, cut way, instead of using sandpaper. Never again will I make THAT mistake.) One of the 3 or 4 'D's I did for him, was from the Ramsey Psalter. He asked me later, for a matching letter 'A', which, thankfully, we have in the extant manuscript, because I was not looking forward to recreating those florals myself. 

I am heartily enjoying making White Vine letters. My "time wasting" project is making a whole alphabet of these, on small pieces of paper. These will be/are 4"x5 1/2". I'm going to try and get an extant example for each letter and then design the final few myself.

Oh this guy. 

(Source)

I did a lot of simplifying, really only taking it on for the fun bird-man. I turned said bird-man into two bird people and modeled them after our Baron and Baroness of Stonemarche.

But a funny story about this guy.

I ended up receiving it, when I was made Baronial Bardic champion. Which was a surprise to say the least (I mean, I competed but the other folks that sang and told stories that night... Wow. Just wow.)

I had joked with Master Harold that I didn't want to get my own scroll if I won, no matter how nice it may be (I will forever only see the smudge in the corner, the wiggly lines, etc.). That being said, it's nice to see it all filled with Master Harold's beautiful calligraphy and being able to slide that back into my portfolio for showing off.

Source is forthcoming on this initial, as I am totally unable to find it right now. I ended up giving this to Mistress Natalia at GNEW and I think she said she used it at Pennsic for someone. I love the challenge these monochromatic letters give me, because you have to make sure your shape is just right. You can't fudge it, because there's not much space to fudge with. You can't paint over it, because you need the paper to show through. It's so much fun!

I got a shipment of pergamenata in and I decided to do a practice piece on a smaller slip of that. I'm pretty sure this piece is 5"x8". It's the Wolf and the Sheep from Aesop's Fables. I decided to attempt calligraphy underneath to tell the moral of the story and for a somewhat first official attempt it's not... the absolutely worst. 

I feel that the moral is relevant to today's world.

(Source. I tried to make the sheep look more upset on purpose.) 

I did a handful of pieces that I plum forgot to take pictures of. Which is my bad. Some pictures (but not of all) have been promised to me. It's so cool sending them out like this, and I'll endeavor to get better at taking pictures of them.

Master Harold took the collection he had of mine to The Battle of 5 Armies (an event in Quintavia) with him and this picture was snagged by my housemate, Simona.

I didn't even realize it was my stuff at first! I truly thought it was someone else's. I didn't even remember doing the piece in the upper left hand corner because I'd done it so quickly for Master Harold. 

I feel sometimes like I'll never catch up on blogging...

A practice piece on figures

Trying to practice and so I chose a fave of mine to experiment on with no hope of it becoming a blank.
May add some more defining lines to the borders still...

Oh and here's the link to the source so you can see how badly I mangled the architecture and borders. http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=60440

Illuminated vomit

I'm just gonna throw a bunch of recent illumination at ya. Blanks. I have sources but not on me so this post will be edited at some point to reflect that.

Silver Cresent scroll

I had the distinct honor of illuminating a scroll for Boden Henebry's induction to the Order Silver Cresent, which was presented to him at Great Northeastern War. It was my first time working on pergamenata (I'm not even sure I'm spelling that right!)
Here are some in progress pictures and a picture of the semi-finished piece. I've been unable to obtain a picture of it with the calligraphy (done by the magnificent Master Harold von Auerbach) but if I do, I'll be sure to post it.
Oh, and here is my source.

Sketching out...

Checking the size. I did have to resize it and add another inch on each side to fit the words.

Gold goes first! Even if it's just goauche. I cannot wait to try my hand at gilding.

Upside down! Dark colors next and then we go up.

No detail is weird. And if I'd had more time, I would have done more....

I had problems getting green to behave this time, so I opted for clean white lines instead of layering lighter green  (and other colors too I suppose) on the leaves. I only had a week or so to get this finished so I'm fairly pleased with the result. This was my first scroll to actually make it out to court (my baronial level scrolls still are waiting for our next event)! That it was a royal court at that (and for an order of high merit?!) Is a baffling honor. 

Viking Coat

As many stories start,
Once Upon a Time, Fortune St. Keyne asked me to do a thing.

Actually, back up, that's not -entirely- true.
This time.

At Crown Tourney I heard that Fortune had recently bartered with a mutual friend in exchange for making her garb. 

And I wanted in on that. So I asked her about it and she said 'Funny you say that, I've just agreed to make their new Highnesses' viking garb for Birka.' and after hammering out a few details, I agreed to do what I can only describe as:

THE CHAPTER IN WHICH KIAYA DOES A CRAP TON OF HERRINGBONE STITCH:

In January (Yes, January. End of the first week of January.) I drive down to see Fortune and she hands me this beautiful wool coat, in the most lovely shade of teal.

And I began my long work of embroidering all the seams and hems.

Oh yes, it was double herringbone my friends. I did everything -twice- and then I slashed the top with a beautiful red cranberry color. 

And then we began stage two:

THE CHAPTER IN WHICH KIAYA APPLIQUES

(Blanket stitch for miles)

Oh yes, every edge on those peacocks. Every color, is outlines in blanket stitch. Now, I will admit, there was learning on this sucker. And the heat-bond stuff DID NOT STICK for long, so I ended up pinning at least half of it down anyway. My stitches could definitely have been more even. However, now? Now my stitches are crazy good. Practice will do that for you.

Remember when I said it was the end of the first week of January? Now it was somewhere in the last stretch of the month. Birka is the last weekend in January. So there wasn't a lot of time.

Oh but then she handed me the apron dress.

And we went back to Herringbone stitch. So much Herringbone stitch. 

And it all got done. I think we'd wanted to do more embroidery on the underdress proper, but when all was said and done, it was done. The coat looked marvelous and their Highnesses were fantastic. (Fortune was so great. She was working on his Highness' coat THAT day (I know, I helped in the hotel room.) and it looked amazing.)

Someone else took this photo and I can't find the source now. I apologize for that oversight. However, it's one of the better ones I was able to find of that weekend and Princess Honig in the teal coat. I'm stupidly proud of that thing and am so thankful that Fortune included me in that project.

Although, hang on, I haven't gotten that garb in payment yet...