Summer Siege Wrap Up - With Pictures

Running a bit behind with blog posts, its been a crazy few weeks getting stuff ready for multiple events.

Summer Siege, as always, was a busy event for me. It was also a Royal progress stop this year as we had a Laurel ceremony happening, so the attendance was significantly higher than usual.

Rapier:

Normally I'm running the rapier list since I'm the Canton's Rapier Marshal, but this year we tried a new format for the A&S activities and as Baronial A&S Minister I ran that instead. Gavin was kind enough to volunteer to run Rapier, and while we didn't have the record number of fencers we had last year, it looked like a pretty good turn-out and folks seemed to have fun.

Normally in the past for the event I have borrowed the Caldrithig armoured combat list poles from His Excellency Shahid, but they are rather large and heavy, and really overkill for rapier. So this year, Avelyn and I worked to make a new set of list poles, based on the ones Jocelyn loaned me last year for the Althing. We even got a bit of power tool help from Avelyn's dad, since our little hand drill was rather under-powered for the job.

The best part of them is that instead of taking up half the back of our truck, I can disassemble them and they fit into a duffel bag. They're super light weight.

Here are a couple of pictures of them in action. We'll call them the prototype, since there are some things I may want to adjust, but they seemed to work OK for their maiden event.

A&S

A lot of the work for the A&S activity was before the event, coordinating judges and entries etc. What I was hoping for was a chance for local artisans to get some feedback on projects. I had a good host of people volunteer to judge, which was really great. Unfortunately a number of people who had planned to enter items weren't in the end able to make the event. We did have one lovely embroidery entry and she seemed to get some good feedback so that's good. Hopefully it will continue to grow in the next few years.

Thrown Weapons

Their Excellencies have been using Summer Siege to run both their thrown weapon's and archery champions tourneys in recent years, as its one of the few venues that lends itself to those activities in the Barony. Last year I managed to win the Thrown Weapons tourney with what was easily my best ever day on the range. The chances of me doing as well again this year were slim, but I entered again this year to defend my title, or at least make sure that I gave the winner a run for their money. :)

During the tourney I knew I didn't throw as well as the previous year, but I hit a good number of throws from 10 ft, but not much from 20 ft, so I knew it would be tight.

In court I was called up to step down as champion, where I surprised Their Excellencies with a new axe and heraldic axe cover for the champion (I did the same when I stepped down as Rapier Champion, so now it's twice, so its a tradition!). Eluned picked up the axe for me at Pennsic and I made the cover based on my existing axes.

Here's a picture of me returning the tabbard and presenting the axe.

and here are some close ups of the axe and cover:

So I bow my way out of court, go back to the audience and resume taking pictures. They call up the Marshal, who starts calling out the top three, and low and behold, they call me up as the winner and Their Excellencies get to give me back all the regalia once again. I think They enjoyed the joke of handing me back the axe after I just presented it. :)

Other things of note:

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Laurel elevation in more detail. THL Alais (now Mistress Alais) focuses a lot of her research on shepherdesses and peasant practices. Her elevation was really unique as they modeled it after a Flemish village wedding ceremony, including using dances as part of the ceremony. It was really neat, and totally suited the event. I'm glad the weather was nice (if hot) and that everything seemed to go well.

I had been asked to be their "official" photographer for the elevation so I tried to make sure I got lots of pictures while I was hopping between activities. I was also able to do a family photo for her after the ceremony, which is always a nice keepsake.

Summer Siege That Was

This past weekend was Summer Siege, which is my Canton's main event each year. In the past it has been in early summer but this year they tried moving it to after Pennsic to see if we could get a better turn-out, as it always seemed to conflict with local non-SCA activities early in the season. Thought I'd post a quick update on what was a really busy day.

In general it was a great event. The new site worked well, and we had great weather and a pretty good turn-out I think.

Note: While there are some A&S tidbits in this post, I spent most of the day doing martial activities so while I try to focus on A&S things on the blog this post will be a bit different. I'll hit the A&S stuff first though so if the rest doesn't interest you, you can skip it. :) It will also be a bit of a long post and not much in the way of pictures to break up the text. Sorry, I'll try to do better next time.


A&S Stuff

So Summer Siege is traditionally a small local event, and this year gate was by donation so the cash flow was a bit simpler. That made it the perfect event to test the stick-purse to see how it would work in a real-life scenario for sorting different currencies and making change. I also brought my documentation and set it up at the A&S display table, so people could take a look if they wanted to.

Thankfully our Gatekeeper was thrilled to use it (thanks Lady Jane). It certainly seemed to work better that throwing all of the bills and coins into the same container. I think the concept was that people could just drop their donations into the container, but people kept wanting change and it got complicated. The stick-purse seemed to help with that.

Jane also told me the colour coding of the bags was really helpful as they could tell what bills were in which pouch. That was my original theory and why I did the colours despite the lack of evidence of colour on the draw strings of the original artifact. It just made sense, and this seems to prove the theory.

They couldn't really use the pouchlets since they don't cinch quite closed because of the thickness of the leather on this version, but I knew about that already.

There was also some discussion about whether it would have sat better on the desk in period because it would have been filled with heavy coins rather than light paper money. I suspect that would have made some difference.

In any case, it was fun to see the stick-purse being used for essentially what it would have been used for in period, and to confirm that the design for the most part worked. I'd call that an experimental archaeology success.

Sorry, I'd meant to get a picture of the stick-purse in use but it was such a busy day I never had a chance. Maybe next year we'll use it again. I had also meant to take pictures of the items at the A&S display table for the Pinterest page, I'm a Bad Baronial A&S Minister. :)


Martial Stuff

Rapier
The main reason I was so distracted at the event was that I was the Rapier Marshall in Charge, as usual for this event. I think I've run the fencing for the last four years now. Normally we don't get a huge turn-out, I think our high previously was five fencers and we've had years where I only get one or two other fencers. This year we got 11 (although two weren't in armour) and we did five authorizations (two primary authorizations, two rigid parry authorizations and one two-weapon authorization). I also had three Marshals in Training on site so they had a chance to do lots of inspections and observe the authorization process.

The authorizations took a lot longer than expected (I only knew about one of the parry device auths ahead of time) but I'm happy to do them since its so hard for locals who don't travel much to get to events they can authorize at. Since I haven't been to practices in more than six months and am from a different Canton I actually count as an unfamiliar marshal for folks in Caldrithig (Ottawa), which makes things easier.

Unfortunately, by the time we were done most of the auths we were right in the heat of the bright sunny day. We did one of the planned tournaments for a bit (a modified bear pit with retained wounds and random plague striking the winner after a certain random number of fights), and then people just sort of did pick-ups until they tired themselves out. I brought ice water, flavour squirts, and all kinds of snacks and had nothing left to bring home other than some pretzels, the fencers seemed to have a good time and no paperwork was required for anyone doing anything silly. I'd say that's a good day of fencing.

Archery and Thrown Weapons
Summer Siege is also host to the Baronial archery and thrown weapons champions tourneys (largely because its the only regular Baronial event that is during the warm months and has the outdoor space to do these activities). Whenever I can I always try to participate in Baronial Champions Tourneys, just as a way to support Their Excellencies and to help make sure they get a good turn out. Last time I did the thrown weapons but this year I did both, since I have my new arrows that His Excellency Master Percival made me last year.

I started with the archery tournament. Given I hadn't shot in probably five years, I wasn't expecting much. My goal was to hit the target at least once and I hit it a total of four times for 8 points. That's not going to win any tournament I've ever seen but at least I shot. :)

I had more confidence at doing at least respectably at the thrown weapons since I throw my axes a few times a year. The tournament had each person throwing six times from each station (axe, knife and spear) at two distances (10 yards and 20 yards). Bulls eye was worth five points, middle ring three and outer ring one.

Surprisingly I did really well with the spears, not usually something I do well. I must have found the right balance-point or something because they we're flying really well (including a couple of bulls-eyes). I hit a few axes too but it was the spears that really bumped my score. Maybe even more surprising, I hit a couple of times at 20 yards with both the spears and the axes, something that I've never been able to do. As usually my knife throwing stunk at both distances and I clanked all of them.

I was one of the last throwers but while I knew my score was really good for me (I probably beat my personal best by something like 20 points), I didn't really have a sense of how it compared to everyone else since I was running around so much and didn't have a chance to see the other throwers. That is, I didn't have a sense until I got called into court by Their Excellencies as the winner, then I had a pretty good idea. :)

So I'm now Their Excellencies of Skraeling Althing's Thrown Weapons Champion.

Surprise - Canton Herald's Binder (with pictures)

Months ago, Nathaniel talked to me about possibly doing some sort of leather herald's binder cover. It's been on my to-do list for a while, but I've been busy working on my QPT project so it kind-of got shelved for a while. I had worked out the carving pattern for the tower at Baron's Howe, but I hadn't really done anything else.

This weekend, while Avelyn was raiding the Black Friday hoards, I was going to do some more work on my leather dyes but decided I should try to get this done instead.

I presented it to the Canton at our meeting/Canton Christmas party on Sunday as a Christmas gift. Yay!

Here's what I did:

First, I had to carve the tower applique piece. I worked on that over the course of the past week and got it ready to go for the weekend. For the dyes, I used a brighter yellow (rather than the mustard yellow I used before), and mixed my own shade of blue to brighten it up a bit since the stuff out of the bottle was so dark. I was pretty happy with the results.

 

Next, I had to get the binder piece done. I decided to use my period dye for this part, so used what was left of my vinegar black. It's such a big piece of leather I had to use every drop I had, and it still wasn't quite as dark as I would like, but it's still pretty good.

So on Saturday, it was a matter of assembling the pieces. I stitched the tower applique on, then used my rubber cement to stick the big leather piece onto the binder. I had originally planned to roll all of the edges over but that didn't work so I just stitched across the top and bottom to fix the piece onto the binder. I trimmed the edges a bit, and voila - she's done.

Workplan - General A&S projects

My other two workplans were more timelines for specific steps of each project. On this one I'm not going to get into as much detail but I'm going to at least try to set myself a timeline for some of the projects that are on my to do list. I'm hoping setting myself deadlines will work better than what I've been doing, which is just making a list and getting to items when I get to them.

Priority will be on getting the leather dye and stick-purse projects done, but I hope to be able to fit some of these in during gaps in those workplans.


Herald's binder for Harrowgate
Deadline - Break the Back of Winter (done and presented to Canton at Christmas party)

I've bought what I need and I have the carving pattern, so now I just have to get it done. I think Break the Back is a reasonable timeline to do it. (surprised them by having it ready three months early). :)

Leatherworking class for Practicum
Deadline - Practicum (February 22)

I'm mostly ready to go. The class itself is ready, I just have to prep some more kits and maybe prep a few more examples to show during the class.

Badges for Largess Contest at Break the Back
Deadline - Break the Back of Winter (March 15)

I started at Fall A&S by cutting out the leather squares. Just have to carve and paint 12 of the badges.


And here's a list of some of the other ongoing projects I have on mys list, just to keep them on the radar:

1. Replace Avelyn's favour (likely make a second more sturdy one for wearing in armour as well)
2. Develop carving pattern for my heraldry and badge
3. Finish Avelyn's lamellar
4. Start work on designing new leather leg pieces for Avelyn's new knee armour
5. Do "commissioned" children's archery glove for Eluned
6. Do "commissioned" belt favour (with award badges) for Robert the Blue
7. Figure out shoe pattern

Leatherworking Class - Achievement Unlocked

After months of planning and a delay last month for when I got called in to work the weekend, I finally delivered my leatherworking class at the Harrowgate canton meeting today.

To be honest I was kind of nervous going in, having never taught a class before but I think it went pretty well.

For details on the class, see this post where I planned out the contents (with links to the pics of the pouch we made).

I had capped the class at 15 to keep it manageable, but I'm glad we weren't full. We ended up with 8 people doing the class, and that was about the right number to make sure I could devote some time to each person and help them as needed.

The class took about an hour and half, which is on the upper end of what I was aiming for, but didn't feel too rushed or too drawn out. People seemed pretty happy with their pouches.

Some notes:

• Folks seemed to like the handout and a number of people with lots of hand sewing experience were able to work ahead using just the handout, so I'm hoping that means the steps were explained well.
  
• I got lots of compliments on the format, with me popping around helping people, answering questions and explaining some of the documentation and embellishments as people were working.
  
• Need to buy different needles. I had bought a bunch of #3 harness needles but the eyes weren't big enough for the artificial sinew (we ended up having to split the sinew to help people thread it through the needle).
  
• I think for Practicum I'll cap it at 10 people to make sure I can devote enough time to people. 15 would probably have been too much.
  
• One suggestion I had was to do up a couple of more demo pouches showing some of the embellishment options. If I have time I think that would be nice.

General update on this and that.....

I haven't had a huge amount of time lately for any leatherworking projects but a busy period is coming up.

Coming up, we have:

Nov 2: Feast of the Hare, which is our Barony's big event normally, but will be even bigger this year since our new Baron and Baroness will probably be stepping up.

Nov 10: Teaching my leatherworking class at Harrowgate Heath. It had to be rescheduled due to work overtime, so hopefully it will be good to go this time.

Nov 16: Fall A&S, where I'll be entering my leather dye project in the Queen's Prize Tourney. I'm done my first draft of the documentation, and most of my actual work is done (unless I decided to try to pull off more colours between now and then).

Dec 8: Canton A&S competition. Not sure I'll be entering anything since its supposed to be for first attempts and I don't really have anything new I've been working on.

Feb 22: Practicum, may offer to teach my leather class and Avelyn and I have been tossing around the idea of doing a couple of classes on media relations.

Mar 29: Spring Kingdom A&S, where I plan to submit my stick-purse. Depending on how things go at the Fall A&S I may also update my leather dye project and resubmit it.

I did do some minor armour repairs for Avelyn so she could fight at Border Spat this past weekend. Just fixing a broken strap and such, nothing super exciting.

I think one of the bigger items of interest came from a conversation I had over the weekend with Mistress Ælfwyn about my leather dye project. I was telling her about my frustration with the way the red dye faded as it dried, and she suggested I try finishing it with oil anyway, as it might bring the colour back out.

I pulled out some olive oil, which seemed period appropriate given the recipe was from Italy. I know olive oil is often used instead of neatsfoot oil, and is what Karl Robinson uses to finish his period dyed leather (according to his web site).

It definitely brought the red back out, although its more brownish-red than the original colour before it dried. I let it dry overnight and it still kept some good colour, so I'll see what it's like when I get home from work today.

I suspect most of my work over the next few weeks will be on trying to get my leather dye project ready for Fall A&S. Once that's done I'll need to start the construction of my stick-purse so that it will be ready for March.

Once those two big projects are done, I think I'm going to switch back to doing some leather carving. I owe a few people some award badges, and I have to work on the Herald's binder of Harrowgate.

Harrowgate tower - with picture

Yesterday I took some time to paint the Harrowgate tower that I carved at Baron's Howe. I'm really not happy with how it turned out, so I'll be carving another practice one to try another approach.

Here's the final pic:

The colour around the tower is actually blue, it just came out too dark (and the flash just made it darker).

So, here's what I did:

I started out by washing the whole thing in black and then wiping the black off. The intention was to highlight the cuts, like I did with the red on the populace badge I carved. I then painted the black on the doorway and the cross, the blue background and the yellow tower.

Unfortunately, too much of the black stayed on the surface when I did the wash, so it darkened everything else. I do like the way the black highlighted the lines (which is what I intended) but I don't think I can do it using these colours. In fact, I'm thinking I need to paint a layer of white first so that the yellow and blue brighten up, but that means I can't do the black highlighting on the cuts.

I'll have to give it a try and see how it turns out. Maybe the lines will still show through OK.

New leather carving pattern - Harrowgate's tower

So while at Baron's Howe this past weekend, I spent my day Saturday working on some leatherworking. Namely, I was developing the carving pattern for Harrowgate Heath's tower. Since the Canton's badge still hasn't been passed (I believe there were some conflicts that needed to be resolved), I'm using the tower for now to represent the Canton.

I didn't bring all of my dyes and such, but was able to finish the carving portion. The consensus seemed to be that I got it right with my first try. It had the right amount of depth without being too busy (which could have been a problem given the level of detail in the original drawing I was working from).

I used my new angled swivel knife, which made a big difference for a lot of the finer detail work, which gives me hope I can improve some of my other carving patterns for the various awards badges.

I'll try to post a few pictures once I get a chance to unpack my gear and finish with the dyes.

Various and sundry updates

It's been a while since I posted so a bit of an update on some recent work.

1) I finished printing up my class hand-outs and the kits are all stuffed and ready to go. I'll hand out the harness needles day-of so they don't fall out of the kits when people are pulling things out. So with that, I think I'm pretty much ready to go, barring doing a practice run or two to figure out what I want to say.

2) The Fries Museum stick-purse looks like it has a bit of a leather button on top of the handle with a loop that could be used to hang the pouch when not in use (as seen in some of the artwork). In my leatherbraiding book there are a couple of patterns to use to make these types of buttons/knots, so I took a stab at one of the easier looking ones tonight. Not so much success on that. I'll have to keep trying to figure it out but it didn't turn out looking anything like the picture. Might have been because I wasn't paying attention to whether the strap was twisted while I wove it. I'll keep trying on the weekend, which leeds me to...

3) We're going to Baron's Howe this weekend for the first time. Since I'm not sure what I'll have to do at the event, I've decided to bring a portable leatherworking shop that I can setup under our shade tent.

I've got the book and strap so I can work on the button, plus I've got all of my leather tooling gear so I can start working on the Harrowgate herald's binder that Nathaniel asked for. I've traced out the pattern on my tracing paper and have a couple of scrap pieces of leather to practice on, plus the round of leather I'll be carving for the actual project. My plan is to carve and dye the round, and then applique it to the larger leather piece. We haven't decided yet if we'll just do a leather cover for a modern binder, or make something from scratch and insert the rings into it. Either way, the applique should work.

Making the kits for my hand's-on leatherworking class

I've been making some good progress on getting my kits together for my leatherworking class.

As a refresher, I'm teaching a hand's-on leatherworking class for the Canton in October. We'll be making small belt pouches as a way to learn the basics. Down the road I'll probably look at doing similar classes on leather tooling and leather dying, but for now the focus is an intro to stitching etc.

I'm capping the class at 15, but that still means I need to make 15 kits.

Each kit will have a harness needle, pieces of artificial sinew for the stitching, plus all of the leather pieces pre-cut and pre-punched so that all folks need to do is sew them together.

So far I have the bag pieces for all 15 kits cut out of garment weight pig skins of various colours (I have some brown, blue, red and green). I'm now punching all of the holes around those pieces and have about half done. I expect I should have that done by Wednesday if I can spend some time on it.

Next I need to cut out the belt loop pieces, which are from a heavier leather, and make the draw strings using  my strapping tool.

I'd like to try to have all of the kits done and bagged by the end of next week so I can move on to more projects. Mass producing leather pieces like this is not exactly the most exciting thing in the world. Of course, if I teach it at Practicum I'll just have to do this all over again.

Pre-Pennsic update on various and sundry

With just over a week until the first wave of people leave for the wilds of Pennsic, we've been busy working on all fronts.

Leatherworking class:
For my October leatherworking class for the Canton, I've completely finished my hand out and its ready to be printed. I've also started to cut out the leather for the class, but I have a long way to go. I have the pouch pieces for five pouches cut but still need to do the draw strings and belt flaps. Plus, I'm going to need a lot more than 5 kits.

I did a quick show of hands for who is interested on the Canton e-mail and Facebook page and so far have about 12 people saying they are tentatively interested in taking the class. I'll probably cap the class at 15, just to keep it manageable, and so that people get some one-on-one help if they need it. Right now, I'm thinking I'll probably need to charge a materials fee of a few dollars, just to recoup some of the leather costs, but I'm trying to use scraps and leather I already have on hand (as much as possible) to reduce costs.

I'll probably do 15 kits and if I don't get that many people, I can always use them if I decide to offer the course at Practicum next year.

Stick-Purse project:
Design-wise, I think I'm about done. I may fiddle a little bit with the waxed linen to see if I can get some thinner threads pulled out (so that I can in-turn use a smaller needle and get the stitches tighter), but otherwise I think its good to go.

This week I started working on my documentation and I'm now about 80 per cent done. Really, the only information I need to add in is stuff from Purses in Pieces that I need to pull out. The content is about six pages, with another 4-ish pages of annexes with pictures of artwork and extant examples, links and bibliography.

Once we're past Pennsic, I'll need to spend a bit of time going back to my period leather dye project so I can figure out at least a few more colours. I've got the yellow for sure. I'd like to try to get a red since I have the brazilwood. Black or dark brown would also work if I can't get the blue or green recipes to work.

Once that's done, I'll actually be ready to work on the final project, which means there's a small chance I'll have it ready for this year's Kingdom A&S.

Armouring:

I did a full inspection of Avelyn's body armour pre-Pennsic and did some minor repairs (some of the stitching had blown). Also did some work on her leg armour to hopefully make it less of a pain to wear.

Added straps to her demi's she bought at Pennsic last year although there's some question if they are usable (may be too short, leaving her wrist not adequately protected).

I tried to rivet the straps onto Avelyn's full gauntlets last week and it was a bit of a failure. Because of the curve of the gauntlets and the size of my anvil (plus the fact I have to work on the floor) I couldn't get the right angle to cleanly rivet the straps on.

We went to the Canton A&S and armouring day this past Monday. I was there for a meeting and Avelyn going to get some help with the gauntlets. Unfortunately she had a bit of an incident and discovered how sharp my leather scissors are, and didn't get much done the rest of the night.

Morag was able to help with some structural ideas and did help her cut out the leather pieces, so I may see how far I can get with assembling it all. We can always go to A&S this coming Monday to get help with the riveting. This may end up having to wait until after Pennsic though since we're running out of time to get projects finished and get everything packed.

Planning my leatherwork class

As I've mentioned a few times, I'm planning an Intro to Leatherworking course for this fall. I'll be giving it following one of our canton meetings, although if it works out well I could probably do it at some local events as well.

The challenge is how to design a course that I can give in about an hour to an hour and a half that will teach people the basics, given that most projects will take longer than that to finish.

The concept is similar to the course I originally took from Tiberius at Practicum several years ago, which is what got me started in leatherworking. I want people taking the class to end up with a useful project, so I was going to use the making of a belt pouch as the vehicle for them to learn the basic skills. That being said, most useful belt pouches will take a new person more than an hour to make, so the trick will be cutting some corners by doing some of the more monotonous work for them in advance, but still walking them through the process so that they know how to do it for themselves later.

My plan, as mentioned here is to use my own design for the pouch. That way I'm not infringing on any copyrights if I share the pattern with people. Here are more pictures of the ones I did for ComicCon.

For the hand out, I'm thinking of doing it step by step, with tips and info for each step included as they go. The annex will include the research I did with links to artwork showing the style of pouch from the period, as well as a list of good resources for period leatherworking as well as local sources for supplies.

Quick outline of the handout would be:

Intro
Basic tools and equipment
Picking your leather
Cutting the pattern
Sewing the pieces together
Embellishments to consider
Annex - Research and other resources

For the class itself, I'll quickly go over the different kinds of leather, the basic tools and materials we'll be using and a bit about belt pouches before we start the project.

I'll probably pre-cut the pieces and punch the holes but I'll bring some scraps and my hole punches so that people can learn the skills without having to spend 20 minutes cutting and punching everything (especially since I won't have enough punches/awls etc. for everyone to use at the same time). I figure about 15 minutes for the intro and showing them the punches.

For the stitching section, it's really just a matter of showing them some basic stuff. I'll probably show them the different materials for sewing the pieces together (waxed linen thread, fake sinew etc.) and then the saddle stitch, and then let them get to work assembling the pouches. I figure giving about 45 minutes for the sewing, during which time I'll wander and answer questions or help people along if they are having trouble.

After 45 minutes has past, I'll stop people and show them some of the things they can do to spruce up their pouches. Some of these are things that would need to be done during construction, others at the end. This would include putting the little closure button on it, putting trim on the belt pouch loop to clean up the lines, adding an applique, tassels, pouchlets etc. I'll show them pictures of examples. I figure this would be about 10 minutes.

After that I'll open the floor to questions for 5-10 minutes (or as long as people want to go).
That brings me in at about an hour and 15 minutes depending on the length of the question period at the end, which is probably as short as I can reasonably get and still have people learn the skills.

Any ideas or comments from my readers on the course? Suggestion on how I can improve the outline before I get to far into it? Is teh timeline reasonable? Does it sound like it might be helpful or interesting?

ComicCon pouches update

I'm making progress but time is running out. So far I have 5 pouches done or within minutes of being done. Two are blue, two green and one red.

Of course, the problem is that I'm trying to get them to Eluned when I see her this coming weekend since ComicCon is the following weekend and I don't know if I'll see her during the week.

Still, even if I don't get any more done, five is still pretty good given the amount of work that goes into each one. They've turned out pretty nice.

Before I do any more I'm going to have to go down to the basement and cut out more pieces, which takes a bit more time. That may slow things down to the point where I won't get any more completed. Although, if I can get more done by Saturday of ComicCon I suppose I can always drop them off when we go ourselves. They probably don't need all of them first thing in the morning.

I'm also figuring some things out for what I want to do with this pattern when it comes to the class I'm teaching in the fall, but I'll put that in another post (so I don't forget my ideas) later in the week.

Latest updates on to-do list

Rather than updating my to-do list from October, I thought I'd start a new post. I haven't got much done since before Christmas, but I did get a few items crossed off and, of course, I've added a number of new items.

1. Figure out engineering and pattern for stick-purse pouches
2. Replace Avelyn's favour (likely make a second more sturdy one for wearing in armour as well)
3. Develop carving pattern for my heraldry and badge
4. Finish Avelyn's lamellar
5. Start work on designing new leather leg pieces for Avelyn's new knee armour
6. Do "commissioned" children's archery glove for Eluned
7. Do "commissioned" belt favour (with award badges) for Robert the Blue
8. Design and make drinking horn hanger for Vod (based on Morag's design)
9. Talk to Nathaniel about herald's folder project for Harrowgate
10. Figure out shoe pattern
11. Help Catherine with her quiver project (if she still needs help)
12. Make some basic pouches for the newcomer kit fund-raiser at ComiCon
13. Track down my comments from Kingdom A&S
14. Prep materials for leatherworking class for Harrowgate Heath - for the fall

Leatherworking class this fall

Well, I've stepped in it now. :) I've offered to teach a class for our Canton in October on making a leather belt pouch.

Good news is I have lots of time to work out the details and pull together all of the resources etc.

We have lots of growth in the Canton so there are a number of new people who may not have any leatherworking experience. I want this to be a good hands-on class so they can come away with something they would be happy to wear at events.

I'm thinking I might use the pattern I developed over the holidays for the covered draw string pouch (http://kraken-leather.blogspot.ca/2012/12/new-pouch-design-with-pictures.html). It's a bit more complex than a basic draw-string pouch and a bit different from what people will have seen before, but simple enough that most people should be able to do it in an hour (if I pre-cut and prep the pieces). I'd have to document it a bit but otherwise it would mostly be ready to go. I could bring a few kits for a more typical draw-string purse too in case there are people who don't tend to wear belts, just to make sure the pouch people make is something they can use.

I'll have to decide what materials to use. Easiest thing would be chrome tan, maybe even some of my chrome tan pig skins that I have lying around at home. It's super easy to work with and its nice and thin, almost like working with fabric. But of course that isn't a period material and the colours are too bright for true period use. Using thin veg tan would be more period but harder to work with and much more expensive. Maybe I'll ask Tiberius what he normally uses.

I want to make sure I cover some basic info on leatherworking too (stuff like the veg vs chrome tan, leather thicknesses, materials for stitching etc.), so that people aren't lost if they wander into the leatheer store for the first time.

If it goes well, maybe I can do it at an event next year.

Latest to-do list

It's been a while since I've posted, mainly because I have been doing so much overtime at work I really haven't had time to do any leatherworking.

I thought it might be a good time to update my to-do list, so I can organize myself for the fall and winter indoor season. Hopefully we'll be able to finish up some of the armour projects for Avelyn this year so she can shed some of the armour weight she has to carry around.

This list is in no particular order, other than when I think of it.

1. Re-send e-mail to museum about the extant stick-purse
2. Figure out engineering and pattern for stick-purse
3. Prep Kingdom A&S project for submission
4. Replace Avelyn's favour (likely make a second more sturdy one for wearing in armour as well)
5. Finish Avelyn's lamellar
6. Start work on designing new leather leg pieces for Avelyn's new knee armour
7. Do commissioned children's archery glove for Eluned
8. Do commissioned belt favour (with award badges) for Robert the Blue
9. Design and make drinking horn hanger for Vod (based on Morag's design)
10. Acquire supplies to try period lether dying project
11. Talk to Nathaniel about herald's folder project for Harrowgate
12. Figure out shoe pattern
13. Help Catherine with her quiver project

Border Spat - The Big Reveal

Well, Border Spat has come and gone and after all of the late nights and hard work it appears to have been a resounding success.

All of my leatherwork projects were really well received.

The Challengers who were helping with the Dean prize fights seemed pleased and surprised with the pouches and marshal kits. I also gave some of my extra sword flex testers to His Majesty Edward the Red, His Excellency Giovanni (through Her Excellency) and to our Kingdom Rapier Marshal THL Lars. I also gave one to one of our newer fencers, Faustus, who won two of the three rounds of the rooftop tournament.

The red belt pouch (which I had originally started as part of my Kingdom A&S project), was won by a noble from Dragon Dormant for chivalrous behaviour during the Baronial Selection tourney. As an aside, Faustus also won a box of Peeps for the best death of the tourney.

The sword sheath, which received a fair bit of attention, was also won by another noble from Dragon Dormant for his victory in the first round of the rooftop tourney. Hopefully it will work with his sword, as the blunts the fencers from Dragon Dormant were using were a bit wider than ours.

All in all, a good day of fencing.

Now, to the pictures:

All of the projects for Border Spat

The pouch for chivalrous behaviour in the
Baronial Selection tourney

The pouches for the Challengers

Inside the pouches

Wide view of the sheath

Medium view of the sheath

Close up of the sheath

Progress Update: Border Spat Projects

With less than two weeks to go until Border Spat, I am happy to report that all leatherworking tasks are now complete. YAY! I have to say when the number of projects started to creep up I was starting to question my sanity at trying to get this many projects done for one event. Hopefully the recipients will like them. It is kind of neat that my leatherworking projects will be scattering across North America after the event.

For the thank you gifts, all eight pouches are made. The extra rapier tips have arrived and we are mostly done assembling. A little bit more work to do sewing the one special item I'm including (thanks Avelyn for your help) and we'll be good to go. I may have to make a few extras though, when I showed Avelyn's design to Lars his eyes lit up.

For the prizes, the secret-ish prize for the winner of the rooftop mass-melee tournament is finished and looks pretty sharp if I do say so myself. I dyed the leather black and a nice saphire blue.

For the Baronial Selection Tournament, there's no winner per se because it's the war point tournament. But there is a prize for the "most inspirational" fencer (which could end up being best death, or bravest newcomer, or whatever Their Excellencies decide). I've finished off a pouch I had previously started rather than starting a new project from scratch. AllI had left to do was put a button on and a loop of leather to keep it closed. I think it will be a nice prize, particulary if the winner ends up being someone new.

I'll be bringing my pile of projects in to the Harrowgate Heath canton meeting this weekend for those that want to see them, and pictures will be posted after the event.

Tonight, I start the pre-cooking with Emelote so no rest for the wicked.!