King's & Queen's Arts & Sciences

I never would have expected it, but I really enjoy participating in A&S displays and competitions. I always put forth my best work, but the SCA has many people who are highly skilled in their chosen craft. Thus, I am always mildly surprised when I score well, and never disappointed with my overall outcome. For me, the joy of participating comes from having the opportunity to converse with many other knowledgeable folks - whether they are judges or audience. There is always something to learn.

And so I prepared to participate in the 2012 King's & Queen's A&S  championship. The rules required entry into 3 categories. I chose embroidery, nalbinding, and spinning. All of my entries highlighted my hand spinning. And each project required different spinning skills.

For the embroidery entry I spun the wool very fine and plied it. I began the spinning using a 21 gram modern rim-weighted spindle. When I spun the wool for the border I used a 27 gram glass sphere spindle. While this spindle is new, it duplicates whorls from the archaeological record. This spindle has become my preferred tool for spinning embroidery thread. I can easily produce a plied thread of 35 wpi. This is slightly finer than modern crewel thread, and allows me to embroider fine detail.

My design for the embroidery was adapted from creatures on illuminations and the Bayeux Tapestry, and a border from a rune stone. I chose to stitch the wyvern and magpie using stem stitch in the manner of the embroidered fabrics found at Mammen, Denmark. The border is done in chain stitch.