Lucky me!

I have the best family in the whole world! My mother and sister are potters. They find my love of the SCA puzzling, but when I mentioned that I had seen an article about Viking Age vessels, they set about to make me some. Here is the gift I received (for no occasion at all), based on the ceramic wine holders illustrated in the article:

I love that they are personalized, and I can't wait to use them. The one on the right is even shaped on the back to fit flat against my hip. Now where did I put my leather cords?

Kingdom Gifts

What happened to February? The bitter cold and copious snow slowed me down. In late January I was asked to create a gift to be taken to the King and Queen of the Outlands. They have Viking personas, so my first thought, given the very short time frame, was nalbinding mittens. Although I was asked if I could create the gift starting from the raw fleece, I knew I couldn't wash, comb, spin and stitch in just 3 weeks. So, using my trusty #6 whorl I spun up enough commercially prepared Shetland top to make mittens for the Queen. Lady Arnlief offered to help with the nalbinding. I gave her the Jacob yarn I had spun for the Ribe mittens, and spun a bit more, just to be sure she had enough, and she stitched mittens for the King. We met the deadline, and the mittens went off to Estrella War. Here they are:

The white mittens were made using the Vendel stitch. The brown mittens were made using the Oslo stitch. The yarn for both pairs of mittens was spun at the gauge of the Ribe mittens.

Now I have to start from scratch for my Ribe mitten project. Not that I mind an excuse to spin.