Epic QPT (as always)

This blog post isn't about anything that I have made, but rather about all the things I saw at QPT.

This year, for the first time, I wasn't eligible to enter Queen's Prize Tourney. It felt really odd not entering QPT.

Having received my Crucible at Feast of the Hare, I had a couple of weeks to find someone to sponsor....and boy did I ever.

I'm super proud of  Marguerite of Boldt Castle. Not only did she make some really awesome period gingerbread, but then she turned it into a gingerbread diorama (which is a bit of a running joke locally thanks to her dad). She totally made the recipe herself (with just a little bit of help from her mom for the steps involving heating the honey on the stove), but she actually adjusted the spicing of the recipe based on taste, rather than just sticking with the recipe as it was printed. There are adults that don't do that kind of adjustment, never mind a six-year-old!!!! The best part is both she and her mom were super jazzed about the day and really seemed like they had a good time.

As my sponsor prize I brought something that would be appropriate for a youth entry (I actually brought a couple of things for different age groups). I ended up giving my prize to Saraphina of Caldrithig. My prize was a starter set for silk banner painting, including a piece of silk, 8 colours of dye, a tube of black gutta and two brushes. I chose Saraphina because I heard that she didn't really enjoy the spinning she did for her project, so I thought I'd give her something new to try - maybe she'll like that better. She's also really local (like 3 minutes from our house) so I offered to come over at some point to teach her how it works.

I also helped judge four projects, which I think went pretty well. I feel like I was more actively involved in the discussions this year (Master Dafydd may have made a comment about "our newest Crucible proving his mettle..or would that be metal ...or something like that). :) Hopefully I was able to help some people out rather than scaring them off. Also got a really nice compliment from HE Lidr that kind of made me think.

Lots of other people entered some really cool stuff. Both Avelyn and Emelote had entries, along with a whole bunch of other Skraels. Sounds like everyone I talked to had a really positive experience.

Unfortunately I don't have pictures of everyone's projects this time, didn't have time with everything else going on during the day. But I know THL Alexander took pictures all day so I'll just have to look forward to them like everyone else does. :)

I have my pictures from court posted though, you can see them here.

Catching up and Planning Ahead

I haven't posted here in a while, largely because I haven't really done much leatherworking lately.

I did manage to finish my pair of leather turnshoes and entered them in the A&S competition at Summer Siege in June, but never did take a picture of the completed set. :) Guess I was too busy taking pictures of the other entries.

Beyond that, I did a little of bit of tooling work on an award badge I'd started a while back, so its ready for dying/painting now.

I did have a bit of a idea on how I can engineer a way to mount my award badges on belt loops without needing to use glue or anything modern, and without punching holes through the actual designs. I need to use thicker leather to do it though so I can't test the idea with my current batch of badges.

For my secret project, I've done some design work and tested the tooling patterns a bit. It's going to test my ability but should be doable. I'm now in a bit of a holding pattern.

Not having done much leatherworking, you know I've been doing something with my time though, right?

Actually, I've been testing a bunch of period recipes for future use. We've always said we wanted to get a good collection of recipes that we've actually made so that we can pull off a feast with less planning needed (see the miracle Kersteken and Sven pulled off at Coronation as reference). I've made a good dent in that for sure, including a couple of recipes I don't think I've ever seen at a feast (probably because they would be hard to pull off in a normal feast kitchen - one needs a rotisserie and the other needs to be steamed, which would be hard to do for a feast of 40-50 people).

I need to start thinking about the QPT, which is coming up again this fall. My original plan was that my secret project might make a good entry but I'm not sure if it will be ready by that point at the rate we're going. I could do another pair of shoes, maybe with a bit more complexity to the design? Or, I could present where I am right now with the stick-purse (with non period-appropriate materials) and get feedback on that? The documentation is in good shape, I've just be stalled while I search out the right leather to use.

Update on Project List Progress

Well its been a while since I posted, largely because I haven't really done much leatherwork. I've been spending most of my SCA time working with Emelote on planning the feast for our upcoming Border Spat event in May.

That being said, I have about nine different leather projects I have to get finished by then so I better get moving.

I did manage to make Avelyn her new belt pouch as a surprise a few weeks ago. Its a draw string style pouch that I made out of a nice purple pig skin. She wore it to Late Winter Shoot and it seemed to work well.

I also started to work on my thank you gifts for Border Spat. I'm going to be pulling together small rapier-oriented emergency kits with a bunch of stuff that would be useful for fencers (tips and tape etc). I'm going to put it all into small leather pouches. I started working on the pouches while we were at Late Winter Shoot this past weekend. Got one pouch cut out and sewn together. Just the closing button and the belt loop to add on. Six more to go!!!

I've consulted with a few people about my plan for the rapier prizes for Border Spat and it seems to be a good idea. I'm going to keep it somewhat hush hush so the winners can enjoy the surprise a bit. One will be for the winner of the mass melee rooftop tournament, and the other will be for the person selected as "most inspirational" by the Barons and Baronesses as part of the Baronial Selection Tournament.

Thora has also commissioned me to make her one of my leather rapier sheaths, like the one I made for the Baronial Rapier Champion when I stepped down from the position. She'd like it to have some sort of Ealdormerian or Skrael symbol on it. I think this one will have to wait until after Border Spat, don't think I'll have time until then.

Latest News - Kingdom A&S

Well, it still looks unlikely that I'll have anything ready to submit for Kingdom A&S in November, but I've at least started work on a project that I could enter in either the beginner/intermediate category. It's much simpler than the other projects I was considering, but it's practical and I can maybe get it done in time.

I've cut out the pattern I need to use, chosen the leather (I would have preferred to use a couple of different colours but I don't have any pieces that would match that are the right type of leather - oh well), and just have to start cutting out the various leather bits and start hand sewing. Maybe I'll have a bit of time over the long-weekend, we'll see how things play out.

Otherwise, the Kingdom A&S site is up and running, the fall issue of the Chronicle is out and I've been spending most of my A&S time lately working with Emelote trying to plan future feasts and event food. I've bought so many period cookbooks lately, it's taking some time to go through all of the possible recipes and pick out ones to try.