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.

My sprang belts

Usually when a person becomes an apprentice they are given a green belt by their Laurel. Mistress Brid is different. Her apprentices are required to make their own belts. I used this challenge as an opportunity to explore the technique of sprang. Sprang is an extremely old weaving technique. Fabric is made by manipulating warp threads. There are no weft threads. Artifacts made by using this technique have been found in Scandinavia, Peru, England, and Egypt, among other places. It can be used to make a simple cap or a complex pictorial. The act of weaving sprang results in a mirror image being formed at the bottom of the warp as the threads are manipulated at the top of the warp.

For my first belt I spun 2 shades of green wool, one S-spun, the other Z-spun. Every 5 rows I switched direction ( S-twist/Z-twist) in order to control the natural tendency to curl.

This is the same technique that was used for the Arden Mose cap, dating from the Bronze Age. I learned that sprang tends to untwist the fibers. Due to the length of the belt, I had to be very careful by the time I reached the center.

The results of my first belt left me wanting to try other weaving patterns. This time I spun a tighter twist. For my second belt I tried a more complex pattern - experimenting with holes, and an argyle pattern that results in a flat fabric. This pattern also results in less stretch than the first pattern.

 I was very pleased with this belt.

The argyle pattern is difficult to see because of the single color yarn. Here is a photo of another piece I made using the same pattern.

Crystal Snowflake Ball

Crystal Snowflake Ball is a medieval dance event that Concordia holds every spring. This year (4/28/2012) I was the autocrat. While I've chipped in to help at other events, this was the first time that I was in charge. I was lucky to have so many people volunteer to help. Even a simple event takes a lot of planning.

The event was held at the First Lutheran Church in Albany, NY. The space resembles a large medieval hall, so no decorating is even needed. We had a group of very talented dance instructors and musicians, and a most delicious Russian-themed day board. We also had a space where fiber and scribal arts were being practiced, and an A&S display. People came from as far away as New York City, Rhode Island, and even Canada. I wanted to broaden people's horizons, so I challenged the instructors to put dances in the sets which were not usually done in Concordia. Everyone danced the night away.

Now they teach some of these "new" dances at our practices. And in the end we came out $5 ahead. I'll call it a success.

How it all started

I was taught how to spin in the spring of 2009. Anyone who has tried drop spinning will probably tell you that while it is not too difficult to learn the basics, it takes practice to become proficient at spinning a consistent thread. I have been spinning every day since Isabelle and Aife showed me how to "park and draft."

At the same time I was learning to spin I was reading everything I could get my hands on about textile artifacts and spindle whorls. Some of my favorite books are "Prehistoric Textiles,"  "Women at Work: the First 20,000 Years," and "The Mummies of Urumchi," all by Elizabeth Barber; and "Ancient Danish Textiles from Bogs & Burials," by Margrethe Hald (a bit dated, but full of statistics and great photos). Reading about archaeological digs got me thinking - was it possible to tell if the spindles found in the graves were used to spin the thread for the cloth in the graves? Nothing I read even hinted at an answer to this question. I decided to develop my own experiment.

Thus began a year long project to determine the production capacity of drop spindles.

War of the Roses - Part II

War of the Roses is also the event where our Barony chooses its A&S champion. This year's challenge was to create an item for a Concordian who was moving away. The piece had to be created in 2 weeks time and be small enough to fit on a plate. My entry to the competition was my latest version of the Skjoldehamn Hood. This is an artifact from Norway that I have been fascinated with since I first came across it about a year and a half ago. Many people have been studying this find of a complete outfit, dated to the 11th century. I intend to eventually complete a version of the entire outfit, but I am studying one layer at a time. With this version of the hood I duplicated the size and stitching of the original, but used wool tabby instead of twill, being the material I had on hand.

I was pleased with the results, and the fact that the hood fits me. Part of the mystery of the find is that it is unclear whether the owner of the hood was male or female. My hood turned out well enough that I was chosen as Baronial A&S Champion. It is a great honor and I am looking forward to sharing my enthusiasm for arts and sciences with many people in the upcoming year.

War of the Roses

War of the Roses is the biggest event that Concordia puts on. It is a fighting/camping/ Arts & Sciences event. This year we had a particularly large turn out because the King & Queen, and Prince & Princess attended. I volunteered to coordinate family activities for the weekend, and I'm so glad I did. The children all had a great time participating in field games, art and science activities. I was lucky enough to have many volunteers so that activities were available all day long. I taught classes in pottery, jewelry making, stick weaving, construction techniques (how to build a strong wall), and beginning embroidery. The children even embroidered handkerchiefs for the Queen.

Mistress Brid coordinated a group project to make a "Book of Hours" for the King and Queen. Together, Lady Siobhan, Lady Heather Rose and myself constructed a book with embroidered covers. Heather Rose constructed the book itself - making the quires and oak cover boards, binding them with the Coptic Stitch. Siobhan spun linen thread and wove the fabric for the covers. I spun the wool embroidery thread and embroidered the covers. We were all very pleased with the outcome.

My design for the front cover (The Tiger of the East) is adapted from a 13th century illumination of a lion from the Lewis Psalter. The back cover is adapted from a 12th century carving on a Lewis Chessman.

A bit about myself...

and my approach to this blog. I am a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. I'm a relative newcomer, having attended my first event in fall 2008, and joining in early 2009. But I jumped into the game with both feet and haven't looked back. I reside in the Barony of Concordia of the Snows, and I am apprenticed to Mistress Brid nic Shearlis.

I'm a curious person, always willing to try something new; when something catches my interest, I try to find out all I can about it. I have tried my hand at many of the arts and sciences practiced in the SCA, but I have found my true passion in drop spinning.

As a Scadian I am comfortable with the concept of time travel, and so I will begin this blog by going back and forth between the present and the past, to tell you a bit about the projects I've completed since 2009, as well as things I am currently working on. I will start tomorrow by telling you about my experiences at this year's War of the Roses, held over Memorial Day Weekend.