Two weeks ago, I had the experience of travelling to my first by-way-of-airplane event. You see, I met a great fencer at Pennsic last year. We have similar styles of movement, and loved practicing with each other. Since the West Kingdom is so far from the official SCA 50-year, they decided they wanted to have…
Sorting the Good Holes from the Bad – Mystery A&S Project #3
I don’t think this one is going to stay a mystery after the halfway point, but let’s see how it goes. I have some lapis lazuli chip beads from when I made necklaces from my lampwork. I’m not doing much jewelry-making recently, and some of those lapis chips were drilled pretty badly (certainly not fit…
My First Black Hours
I’ve been talking about wanting to try black hours from the first QPT where I entered illumination. Although I’m starting to prep for A&S next year, I thought it was about time I did what I said I wanted to do. I decided to take my inspiration and designs from the Libro Negro de las…
Cleaning up Slices of Boxwood – Mystery A&S Project #2
I was gifted some hard-to-find pieces of boxwood by my friend Einar and want to do something fantastic with them. I had wanted to make a comb for Pent 2015, but it was not to be. Boxwood is a very slow-growing shrub, and though it was used heavily in the middle ages (where they had…
Beginning a Medieval Garden – Mystery A&S Project #1
March 2016 – Purchased seeds, began indoor planting and removed sod from one side of our yard in preparation for planting grains and herbs/dye plants/medicinals. March 28, 2016 – After the long-awaited seeds have finally arrived, began planting dye plants indoors. Got the indigo, woad, pasque flower, lady’s bedstraw, and marjoram planted. The indigo was…
First Soap Making
Because I have allergies to most commercial toiletries and cleaning products, I have been thinking about making my own soap for a while. Luckily there was a soap making class at Practicum this year. Unfortunately, there was a lot of scent in the room due to the soap-maker’s artificial fragrance, so I missed most of…
The Golden Boar
I was approached in spring 2015 for a special project, due at Murder Melee. The Barony of Ben Dunfirth wanted to award a barony member with the highest honour available to them – the Golden Boar. The person who approached me thought that I was a part of that person’s household, and although I’m not,…
Diptych of Illuminations from the Book of Hours of Daniel Rym, Kingdom A&S 2015
This project was a part of my winning Pentathlon entry for Kingdom A&S 2015. The goals of this project were to use pergamenta and gouache for the first time, to recreate an illumination in similar size, colours, and technique as the original, and to do whitework design. (Challenges that were suggested to me at QPT)…