Prepping for Kingdom A&S (with picture)

Kingdom A&S is coming up fast, we're now essentially three weeks out. The deadline to get all entries registered is the end of March.

I've been on the fence since I didn't think I'd have enough time to get all of the work done on the stick-purse but I've made a big-time push in the past week and a half so things are looking more positive.

Last night I finished the stitching on the final of the four pouches. That's the bulk of the hard work, so I think it may get done.

Here's a pick of the pouches in my work basket.

Final Stick-Purse in Progress - The Four Pouches

Next steps are to cut out all of the pieces to be dyed, so the handle leather and the drawstring straps. Then I have to do up some new batches of my various period dyes and dye the leather before assembling it all together. I also need to take a look at my documentation from QPT and make sure its updated with the details of the final project. Last time I also added a page to explain any changes that were made since QPT, which went over well with the judges. I'll probably do that again.

So, still a bit of work to do, but it may just get done in time.

Update heading into Practicum

I guess its been a while since I've done an update. Lots of little tidbits to update on:

• While we were in the UK, Maggie asked if I could do a leather badge for her like the ones I made for her parents. Except with a rainbow. So Maggie's getting a rainbow badge (shhhhh, don't tell her). I started the sketches to figure it out, I think I'll throw a trillium on there too so its clear she ours, even with her cute little British accent. :)

• I've made some progress on my final stick-purse. I'd been stalled for a while so its good to get it going again. The leather I'm using is still to thick, so its really hard to do some of the hand-sewing, but its thin enough that it folds the way I need it to, so it will work. It's just a bad combination of design and materials that's making it a pain in the butt to finish.
  
  This past week, I managed to finish the first pouch, just need to dye the draw strings and weave them in. Just three more to go, plus the handle.
  
  I'm still contemplating whether to go to Kingdom A&S so I want to keep pushing to get it finished in time, just in case I do go. 

• Practicum is this weekend in Ottawa. This is a really big arts and sciences learning event with classes all over the spectrum (including a few fencing classes this year).  I'll be teaching my new class on my period leather dyes, so I've been working on finalizing my hand-out lately. Eventually I'll publish it online as a resource too.
  
  I'll be spending the rest of the day taking a bookbinding class from Mistress Tarian. I'm really looking forward to since Tarian really knows this stuff and does fantastic work! I've been wanting to learn this from her for a while now. Since my next project might actually be a book with a filigree cover like the ones I saw in Dublin, it's perfect timing too. That's assuming I'm any good at it of course. :) Plus, I'll get to use some of the goat skin I bought for my stick-purse that didn't work (it was to thick but will be perfect for a book cover).

I'll try to do a post Practicum update next week on how my class went and nay changes I want to make, plus maybe some pictures of my bookbinding project.

Win a custom rapier sheath - Fundraiser for a research trip for Lady Emelote

As some readers may know, Lady Emelote participated in a CBC fundraiser for the Ottawa Food Bank last year and as part of the program was granted her food wish of cooking at Hampton Court in the Tudor Kitchen. This is very rare and a huge opportunity for her (and for us as she has promised to pass on what she learns). Here's the link for more info on how this all happened (and how to donate).

The one catch is she needs to pay her way to England and expenses while she's there, and that's where this e-mail comes in. The economy is tight for everyone so I thought I'd offer some incentive to help Emelote out. :)

You may have seen my rapier sheaths in previous posts (if not there are pictures in the photo album page at the top of the blog). As a fundraiser to help Emelote get to Hampton Court, I'm going to do a draw for a custom rapier sheath. You can help design the tooling pattern and then we'll do it up to fit your sword in the colours you like. There are currently only six in existence (including the prototype that I use) so this is a limited time offer!

So, for every $25 you donate, you will get a token in the draw. No limit on how many tokens a person can have, just based on how much is donated. So if you donate $50, you get two tokens. Just let me know when you've made your donation and I'll add you to the draw. You can comment on this blog post or send me an e-mail to let me know.

Please feel free to share with anyone you think might be interested. It doesn't need to be limited to Ealdormere, we want as many people in the draw as possible.

Once the project is done and delivered I'll post pictures on the blog (with permission from the recipient of course).

Here's a link to the Campaign on fundraizr.com: http://fnd.us/c/9vat2

Let's get Lady Emelote to Hampton Court!

Starting my Research on Leather Filigree

Leather filigree or cutwork  is something I've never done before but after our trip to the UK this fall I'm thinking about doing it as my next type of leatherwork I want to explore. It will fit well as a way to decorate many of the types of items I've already been learning to make.

Basically, the idea is to cut out pieces of leather from your item so that you can see the underlying material. Often, the cutwork leather will be layered with a coloured piece of paper or fabric, so that the nicer colour will show through (often a colour that you couldn't produce on the leather itself). In the case of shoes, the cut-outs would reveal the colour of the hose being worn underneath.

There are lots of artifacts with cutwork or filigree. You often see it on shoes, jerkins etc. However, the most impressive I've seen was from the really cool Islamic leatherbound books at the Chester Beattie Library, which is what's really inspired me for this research. The level of detail was incredible (we're talking extremely complex patterns cut-out so that there was only milimeters of leather left between the shapes). I have no idea how they did it (but why not learn). Of course, something tells me its also going to lead me down the bookbinding path as well. :)

So as a starting point, I thought I'd gather some period examples of leather filigree here, along with links to useful information and more modern how-tos.

Period Examples & Documentation

Online article on the use of filigree in book covers from the 15th & 16th century: http://islamic-arts.org/2011/filigree-bindings-of-the-mamluk-period/

Article on the bookbinding of the Ottoman Empire: http://www.home.umk.pl/~tsb/sites/default/files/numer9/rukanci.pdf

The Chester Beattie Library Guidebook (which we bought on our trip): http://www.cbl.ie/Shop/Guidebook-to-CBL.aspx

Pinterest board of filigree/cutwork artefacts: http://www.pinterest.com/DafyddapAlan/leather-filigreecutwork

Modern How-Tos and References
Discussion on Leatherworker.net about how to do filigree: http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=33670

Projects and A&S Goals for the New Year

While there were some highlights (like finally getting the stick-purse project to the point where I had something to show off at QPT), overall 2014 wasn't nearly as productive as I had planned. Particularly later in the year, with travel and real life stuff taking over much of my time, I feel like there were long stretches where I didn't really do much in the workshop. I know Avelyn feels the same, with most of her hobby time being taken up with officer positions.

So with 2015 now here, I thought I would put down on paper some of the things I want to get done this year. If past years are any indication, if I get even half of the stuff done it will be an accomplishment, and there will be other projects I take on that weren't planned that will take up large chunks of time. So, in no particular order:

Personal A&S Stuff

1. Finally finish the stick-purse (potentially for A&S in April)
2. Finish developing and teach my class on period leather dyes (submitted for Practicum in February)
3. Publish my leather dye research and experiments more formally online so people can access it for their own research and use
4. Decide on next major project for future QPT/A&S and start planning (possibly leather filigree work based on the period Islamic book covers we saw at the Chester Beattie Library - maybe as a scroll blank?)
5. Do groundwork research on possible Pent theme to see if its feasible (does it hit the right categories etc.)
6. Get the helm padded and strapped, and finish modifying my kit so I can finally start working towards getting my armoured combat authorization
7. Get Avelyn's leg armour back in shape so she can get back on the field
8. Finally make some banners or pennants or something for events.
9. Continue uploading my UK artifact pics on Pinterest for people to see (still several thousand pics to go).
10. Try to find a blue leather dye recipe that works (in the summer when I can work in the garage and vent it properly)
11. Make a pouch with a kraken design on it
12. Make a rainbow badge for Maggie :)

MOAS Stuff

1. More consistently get the Twitter account going and do up a plan to promote it.
2. Investigate idea of setting up group "research days" at local university libraries.

Non-A&S Stuff

1. Start getting out to rapier practice more regularly
2. Get my bow inspected and getting ready for the archery season now that I have arrows
3. Do a better job of both sending in award nominations and tracking them so I know which ones are still needed

Planning for Practicum (with a question for readers)

So the call for teachers has gone out for Practicum, which is a local day of classes in February on all things historical and relevant to the SCA here in Ottawa. Last year I taught a class for the first time (Intro to Leatherworking) and I think it went pretty well.

So this year I'm trying to decide if I want to actually offer two classes, and whether or not I have the time and energy to get them both prepped.

The first class would be the same Intro class I did last year. I have some kits left so I don't think it would take too much work to prep enough for another small class.

The second is a new class I've been working on around my period leather dye project. It would be more of a discussion, rather than a hand's on class (it takes too long to make the dye and apply it to the leather and the process is just too messy and smelly to really do in that setting). The idea would be to walk through the sources of recipes, what colours would have been available and show the results of my experiments. I have permission from the publisher of the Plictho to reproduce the recipes, so people would walk away with at least a few original source recipes to play with.

The question is, would there be interest in the classes? I only got a handful of people for the intro class last year, which was fine because for a hand's on class I'd rather work with a small group. The dye class is more advanced, but still pretty specialized, so there may be a limited number of people interested (but also less prep involved in it since I don't need to make kits for people).

So, let's do a survey oh readers of the blog. If you're going to Practicum, would either of these be of interest. You can comment here or on Facebook when I share the link there, whatever's easiest. :)

Our Day at QPT (With Pictures)

In a small Kingdom like Ealdormere, there aren't a lot of events that draw close to 200 people. Trillium War does it, but that's a multi-day camping event in the middle of the summer. But in the winter (or at least close enough that there's always the threat of snow), and an event without any martial activities? It's pretty much unheard of.

And then there's QPT. An entire day with the entire focus on just geeking out about research and arts & sciences projects. The fact that 200 people showed up is just amazing.

On top of entering a project this year for QPT, I was also scheduled to be a judge for four different projects, so my day was much busier than last year.

My Project

Last year for QPT I entered my period leather dye project and got lots of great feedback and tips to get the recipes to work better. It ended up improving the project, which I entered into Kingdom A&S in the spring.

This year I entered my full mock-up of the stick-purse. This was a pretty big deal since I've been working on the research and engineering for a couple of years (the dye project actually stemmed from my desire to go whole-hog on the stick-purse, which meant figuring out how they would have coloured the leather in period).

The conversation with my judges was interesting because it didn't really follow the usual flow for these things where I talk about what I was trying to accomplish, etc. We just jumped straight into what the heck it was, how it was used and the different design considerations. It felt like a pretty in depth discussion with people who really knew their stuff, which was fun. We were talking about what the best approach would be for the back seam, whether the bottom seam was the right approach based on the picture, and best materials for the final pouch.

They also seemed to agree with me on my theory that coloured leather (in this case possibly on the drawstrings) could have been used as a way to tell what coins were in which pouch. I specifically demonstrated this by having four different currencies distributed in the four pouches. We had no way of telling what was in each bag without pulling the coins out (which seems clumsy for such an otherwise well thought-out item).

Overall I got the impression that they felt it was a pretty accurate reproduction using modern materials, with a few possible tweeks that could improve it, so the next step is to translate it into the final period purse while improving some of the elements that I'm not yet satisfied with. The final purse may be done for Spring A&S, but it will depend on where the event is being held as well.

It was also neat to have conversations with a number of other people who've been following my work on the stick-purse and were really excited to see some sort of tangible product finally. :) The stick-purse got lots of strange looks by people wandering by trying to figure it out, which was fun to watch.

Here are some pictures of the final mock-up. It's not the easiest item to take pictures of since its kind of busy, but it gives you an idea at least.

 

My Judging Experience

This was definitely new for me, as it was the first time I've volunteered to be a judge for anything like this. Frankly I never really felt like I had enough knowledge or skill in any area to really contribute much. I'm still not sure I do, but there were so many people entering I wanted to help out where I could. 

I had offered to judge entry level leatherworking projects, anything with leather dyes, as well as any juggling or tumbling entries (given my circus background). Sadly, there were no juggling entries but I did get assigned to judge a total of four leatherwork projects (although one of them pulled out on the day so I ended up with three sessions total).

Overall, I'm not sure how much I contributed to the conversation on most of the projects. I was judging with people who had far more experience and knowledge relevant to the items, and kind of trumped anything I might have had to add (not that it came across that way or was at all negative, it was just that I had so little knowledge to pass on in comparison that I was more in listening mode than anything). I did learn a lot about horse bridles and knife sheaths though, so it was certainly a valuable experience. I had a little bit I could share for Grom around dying the leather and the pictures we took while in Dublin of tooled leather knife sheaths, but that was about it.

The one project I feel like I actually added some value wasn't even on my original judging list, it was added closer to the event. The project was around experiments with dye-stuffs, including applying dyes to fibers, leather and wood. I had a good chat with Brendan about his project and was able to share some of my experiences with my research project from last year. I gave him a copy of my documentation so he could track down some of the recipe sources and do some experimenting as well. Hopefully he found it useful.

The Rest of the Day

Both Avelyn and Emelote entered items as well and it sounds like they had good conversations and input on their projects.

For QPT, sponsors bring prizes equal to the number of people they sponsored and then they each pick entrants that they would like to present with their items. That way each entrant gets something, usually from someone who was really impressed by their project (and who wasn't their sponsor).

In my case I received a really cool mortar and pestle, along with a box of dried spices from Mistress Aibhilin (which I'll totally be able to use for some upcoming cooking). You can see it in the middle of the picture below.

I was also called up into court at QPT and presented with an Award of the Orion, which is an arts and sciences award from the Kingdom. This was really cool on a number of fronts. First, obviously it means people are liking the work I'm doing. Yay me! :) It also means I have awards in all three of the main areas of the society (A&S, service and martial skills). I think this is really cool because it's not all that common to have people active in all three spheres (although my martial participation hasn't been great lately).

It was also really cool because of the crazy scroll I received for the award. Lady Augusta went totally over the top with the artwork. There's a frickin leather kraken appliqued to my scroll! How crazy is that? The kraken isn't just in the name of my blog, it's also the main charge in my SCA heraldry. We call him Steve. :) And the wording, which you can't really see in the picture below, is full of groan-inducing puns by my very own Lady wife Avelyn. I know they are groan inducing because the room was groaning as they laughed while it was read out in court.

There were, of course, lots of other highlights. We got lots of hugs from friends, were able to see Her Excellency Christiana put on vigil for the Order of the Pelican (WOOT), I got my apprenticeship pudding (don't ask, long story) and we were able to start giving out some of the gifts we brought back from the UK (although most of them are still in transit).