Silver Crescent - Francesco

Another of my "wee scrolls" at 5'x7", this was a fun one if for no other reason that we had a ridiculous time working with Erhart von Stuttgart for wording. Finding words that "rhyme with speak" devolved into giggles during out weekly Scriptorium get together.  Because "on fleek" and "Mozambique" also rhyme with the target phrase. :)  He was a good sport who let us take his key words and run with it.

I'm particularly proud of the sketching on this.  I decided to include the peacock because of Her Majesty's heraldry.  I think he turned out pretty cute.

The hand I used for this was a humanist bookhand.  It's a little late for the source, but I didn't want to do a full on gothic script.  I had wanted to go a "proto-gothic" transitional but lost the source document for the script I liked.  My thought on this was humanist at least made it recognizable as an Italian source which was the key in picking this for the recipient's persona (even though the original is Italian with wording in Hebrew).

Recipient:  Barone Francesco Gaetano Gréco d’Edessa
Award: Order of the Silver Crescent
Source: British Library - Additional 11657 f. 27 and f.110v
Illumination: gouache on pergamenata, Schmincke gold watercolor
Calligraphy: Humanist. 

Side by side with the two originals.  The scroll became a blend of the two so I could include the peacock.

Finished scroll.  The outlining here is done and just needs signature lines.

Award of Arms - Dorian

This assignment was one of my self-assigned projects while everyone else was at Pennsic this year.

The story behind this assignment was that I was put into contact with a gentleman in New Jersey who was looking for a replacement scroll for his AoA that was lost during the Hurricane Sandy which affected much of the Jersey coast in October 2012.   He's been in the SCA a while and wanted to get a new scroll made at the urging of his children who are now getting interested in the SCA and wondered why he didn't have a scroll.  In comes Christiana and her ever vigilant facilitating of people who need old scrolls done to talk to the Backlog Deputy (me).

Coolest thing about this assignment?  Check out the royals.  Tsurunaga and Genevieve...1993

Recipient: Dorian de San Kalogero
Assignment: Award of Arms - backlog/replacement
Illumination: British Library - Harley 3957 f. 4v
Hand: Humanist bookhand

I ended up entering this piece into the A&S Defender's of Quintavia competition (theme was Quintavia colors which are white and green).  Think baronial champs, but for the Shire.  Also #3 scroll with gilding on my own.

Silver Brooch - Gregor

This assignment turned into a crazy two part project.  The time frame for this to be completed was while I was elbow deep in painting for Fortune's Silver Crescent scroll.

This would have been a simple update if not for the story attached to it.

Original Scroll:
Award: Order of the Silver Brooch
Recipient: Gregor von Medehem
Calligraphy by me - hand is gothic
Illumination: Mergriet van Wijenhorst
Illumination add-ons (badge and illuminated capital) -by me
Words: Alys Mackyntoich

My gothic looks nice, actually.  May it live on in blessed memory.

This scroll was another piece of scroll karma where I picked art that connected with the recipient so much more so than I ever thought.  When I got the assignment, the recommendation didn't say a whole lot about the recipient and the recommender was different than the listed contact.  Being on a tight timeline, I used my time to practice the hand and do some additions to the art I had set aside for this.

Panteria comes and goes....this scroll was given out on Sunday and I had left Saturday night.  Per usual, I can't sleep in and go check the interwebs while drinking coffee.  So I get a message from Christiania (because she has a knack for knowing when I'm tuned in to respond to messages) with a tale of woe, tragedy, and every scribe's worst nightmare.  This incredibly nice gentle who received my scroll was cursed by a cruel twist of fate and what was described to me as a Rube-Goldburg-esque series of events that cause his guitar strap to break, the swing of the instrument to hit his beer, the beer to arc upward and over to the scroll, splash all over the calligraphy, and the guitar to be smashed upon the ground after in a final destruction and mayhem.

Somehow...someway...could I reproduce the scroll?

O_O'

Well....huh....I'd like to say at this juncture I looked at my event schedule, the timeline for finishing Fortune's scroll, the likelyhood I've have another assignment shortly given the reign schedule, and said sure but it likely won't be until after GNEW.

A few days before GNEW I had just finished the chibi scroll for Fortune and had an idea. I took the deceased's scrolls sister that I had earmarked for another project and went to work on it it.  My deadline would be tight and there was a chance I wouldn't finish.  Still, I jumped for it and forged ahead.

I finished the additional artwork to Mergriet's illumination and specifically hand drew a new snail on this one.  The illuminated capital got away from me and decided to be large, awesome, and super fussy with some white work. I ended added the leaves to make the artwork of two people blend just a little bit more and make the piece look polished.

Snail rides again!

At this point, it's my bed time.  I just finish the fussing with the illumination and I'm debating fighting with my gothic hand at 10pm.  Like an angel appearing in the night, Thyra casually made an offer to do the calligraphy for me so we could hand it off done in person rather than waiting until after Pennsic.  In return, I'd owe her some illumination for one of her upcoming projects.  This meant I could prep for the wedding I had to go to and pack for GNEW the next day.  Wooooo!

The scroll was completed and given to Aneleda and Christiana for hand off now with Thyra's lovely calligraphy and an unholy bargain of TBD illumination.  All in all, I'm happy with my art additions and the snail is adorable.

Oh, actually both scrolls were handed over so the tale of Martin Scroll-Killer (Gregor's guitar) could grow in infamy and legend.

Silver Wheel - Bianca

Sometimes you do stupid things for people you like.

Sometimes you do stupid things because you have a friend next you to also contemplating doing a stupid thing and you're in it together.

This scroll for Bianca was done as a "combat" scribal assignment at the event it was to be awarded at.  I found out this was going out last minute at the afternoon court and there was no scroll for it.  Another scroll was in the same boat as well.  Both Thyra and I had out travel scribal kits with us, but this time I happen to have blank scrolls with me as well.

The thing about Northern Region War Camp this year?  It was hot and soupy!  And we still managed to finish out scrolls.

Award: Silver Wheel
Recipient: Bianca Anguissola
Calligraphy: Done by me, Humanist bookhand
Illumination: Carmelina da Vicari
Words: Malcolm Bowman

I honestly would not have been able to do this like six months ago.  I used capital letters!  The spacing was nice!  *swoon*  Congrats, Bianca!  And thank you to the herald staff for letting me know about this one. :)

Silver Crescent - Fortune, Part 2

Getting down to business...

I went with Simona to Claytime in Shrewsbury which is a paint your own pottery studio.  This place would be my base of operations for May and June....and is like five minutes from Fortune's house and a frequent hang out for her household.  If you did not think I was paranoid she would just burst in while I was in the middle of painting, you are wrong.

In our first visit, Simona and I wandered around looking for a plate with a nice, large edge and a shallow bowl.  I didn't find what I wanted.  We wandered around some more, chatted, and then we find one.  It's the only one in stock, wasn't too big, and looked like it would work.

Having only done paint your own pottery twice before, I needed to re-familiarize myself with how this process worked.  After picking a base coat of a light sand/ neutral color, I determined the brushes were not going to cut it for the detail work I needed to do.  Even the adult bushes (re: smaller than the gigantic ones the kids use) were not going to give me crisp lines and would make the portrait sheer hell to paint.  In this first visit, we finished the base coat and I added my marker's mark (a blue daisy) to the back over the price (in case that didn't burn off).  This was used for the identifier to the piece so I didn't have to write my name on it.  Turns out an identifier wouldn't even be needed, which I'll get to later.

Graphite pencils were a no-go for tracing.  Claytime cannot guarantee all of it will burn off in the kiln, so they suggest using felt tip markers.  The other valuable piece of information Simona was able to pull out of them was I could use watercolor pencils to draw on the place which would then be hidden.  I had no idea these even existed and of course Marieta came to my rescue with these.  Thyra also introduced me to chalk paper (instead of the graphite transfer paper I was planning on using) which let me sketch normally instead of making a mess on the plate itself.  This was INSTRUMENTAL in getting most of the designs on the plate itself.

I joke that I spent hours at Claytime, but I also spent a fair amount of time sketching at home, transferring the designs, and generally yelling at paper.  The other thing I did?  Layout design and measuring.  I have never done so much math and measuring for a scroll in my entire life! The layout I decided on relayed on the circles being radially symmetrical and their background sections with stripes to be proportional.  First this meant the entire lip edge of the plate had to be measured and marked off evenly.  I used a template for the circles and the border/wheel on Fortune's heraldry.  Everything marked off was done in watercolor pencil.

More measuring...more measuring....

I begin the sketching of the leaf and vine motif and I'm happy with it.  I go to transfer it to the plate and it's waaaaaay too small.  My solution was to repeat the vine pattern to fill up the space.  To me, this made it feel like the color had more to contrast to and struck a nice balance.  This also left me room for the tiny bee on the right panel.

It's at this point that I started to put the paint on the plate....

Embarrassingly, I had a flair up of pain from my lingering tennis elbow issue (hence the arm brace).  Good news - when you paint with friends, they can take progress pictures for you!

Claytime was enormously accommodating to my long painting sessions and spreading out on the table at points.  It turns out that when you're happy to share a table with other people (I'll get to that) and you behave like a normal human, they love you.  After each session, I took the plate home and thought about the next steps.

You can see the lines from the layout design.  These were all done in watercolor pencil (thin lines).  The thick lines are the first instances of the paint going on.  It looks like blue now, but it will darken once fired.

A few sessions in and I have some clear progress.  Most of the staff now knows about "the plate" and I have one regular gal on staff who knows me on sight.

So many lines to paint.....so many....

Most of the "easy" part is done.

And now we get to the part where I dreaded working on this...the protrait.  It's been said elsewhere in my blog that I hate drawing people.  I feel like a massive art-impostor trying to draw people because I cannot make them look right.  The amount of sketches I threw out that no one saw or that were drawn,had comments,hated, and then threw out are numerous.  Part of my problem was fear of the derp face (though it's period) and the other part was trying to blend a real like protrait style with the majolica style.  I ended up going with just a majolica portrait after receiving some wise and balanced input.

Sometimes you need to eat junk food and use your light table as a desk while watching  HGTV to be properly inspired.

The hair under went some revisions at the Quintavia Business meeting, but this was the most successful sketch.  I opted to do Fortune's hair uncovered as that's how she wears it to events usually and the bun is one of her signature styles for no-nonsense mischief.  Most of the plates depicted a veil or hat of some sort.  That idea was discarded after disastrous attempts of putting a coronet on previous sketches.  I used my light pad to traces the curly-queues of the banner because at this point it was 10pm and I had to go paint the next day.  The lettering hand on the banner is a humanist.  The portrait was transferred using chalk paper (my savior) and I was then good to go!

Take that, tennis elbow!  I'm mostly free of your sabotage!

Lookin' good!

The next steps were the tedious parts: the scales, the brush lining, and the signatures.  Remember when I said I would share a table with other people?  Yeah.  One session of painting I was at the end of a table near and aisle where one kid would constantly hit the back of my chair as they ran by.  (Child running in a pottery studio...think on that....)  The fifth or so time it happened, I think I actually swore because my brush skipped.  At that point, the dad of said free running child finally noticed what the kid was doing (because up until now he's been wrangling two other screaming terrors).  And lo, holy hell was reigned down on said child by their parent and many apologies were made.  I was actually more embarrassed and apologized for swearing.  The next session I was at, I sat with Captain Shakey-Table himself.  I kept my expletives to myself this time.

Boooyah!  This baby is DONE!!

Yeaaaaaaaaaaay!  I'm dooooooooone!

My artist mark.

My Claytime staff friend snapped this photo for me. :)

I may have said to the staff if it breaks in the kiln, I'll cry. 

Weeks pass and then I get this photo in a text message from Simona who went to go pick it up.

Dear god, I'm a lunatic for doing this....

But wait...there's more!  I decided this needed a scroll for the royals to sign the week before it was due (in between another scroll project and silk banner painting).

Eva wrote a lovely sonnet for this because she is amazing.

Calligraphy hand - Humanist by me

Words - Eva Woderose

Congrats, Fortune!  May you continue to smile upon Quintavia.

Special thanks to:

The ideas department: Simona bat Leon

Claytime painting company: Simona bat Leon, Marieta Charay
Sketch consultants: Nataliia Evganova, Eva Woderose, Thyra Eiriksdottir, Marieta Charay
Sounding board: Sergei Rozvad syn
Cheering section: House Strangewayes, Darostur, assorted members of Sharc and Lochleven

Silver Crescent - Fortune, Part 1

Sometimes you find inspiration for a scroll.  Sometimes, other people brainstorm a crazy idea and you're the first person they think that might actually do it.  Okay everyone!  It's story time that has been in the making since March.  Grab a snack and hold on to your hats...

*Full disclaimer - I had fun with this scroll and would have asked to do it on my own anyways.*

The background: In which our intrepid scribe does not see the bad idea bus that hit her, backed up, and ran her over again.

I have a weekly sewing group I hang with (and sometimes we even sew).  It was on such a Monday that Simona walked downstairs into the sewing room where we were all gathers and let me know that she "had a great idea" and "got the Signet to agree to give me the assignment".   First of all I'm confused....then I'm intrigued....then I remember the backdrop for Edward and Thyra's second reign and yell "what the hell did I get volun-told to do this time?"

The glee and mischief in Simona's eyes gave me such dread that I almost ran.  Anytime anyone is that pleased with themselves, you just know you're in for it.  To paraphrase - "Fortune's getting her Silver Crescent!!!  We (meaning House Strangewayes) had a great idea to do a majolica plate and thought you'd be the best person to ask!"

It's at this point I think, sure I can do that....and then I see what a majolica plate is.  It is the bane of my artful existence....drawing people.  Not even just people, big honkin' front and center portrait that is the goddamn centerpiece of the entire plate.   I am placated and assured that and I quote "Meh, it's period to make them derpy.  You'll be fiiiiiiiiine."  Famous last words.

Research: In which our intrepid scribe stares into the derp and the derp stares back.

Simona helped me out by finding museum pictures of real maiolica (sometimes spelled majolica) which were heavily decorated plates that gained the most popularity in the 15th c Italy, but were also present in England earlier in the century.  The real plates were tin glazed; featuring very vibrant colors and displayed fanciful art of either a historical or mythical variety.  The deep blue caught my eye on a lot of the plates and I decided that would be my focus color.  Of the pictures I was given, I chose various element that I thought would work for a scroll.

The design: In which our intrepid scribe starts to make with the ideas.

The first plate - I liked the idea of the circles which would hold the order symbol, Fortune's heraldry for her Grant of Arms, and what I initially though would be a circle for each of the signatures of TRM.  Things changed over the course of the project.  Fortune received her GoA with her Court Barony at Panteria which I no longer needed to include, but since Panteria was in May I had already made the decision to include the arms.  Late into the project, it was suggested to put the signatures on one circle and actually write the damn date on the plate since I had a design change which would have left it out.

The second plate - The least derp of the portraits and my inspiration.  I found it easier to do a right facing portrait for some reason so I stuck with it.  The scroll would also serve to display Fortune's name and the award title.

The third plate - This is where all the edge design came from.  The pattern was very regular, not too busy, and most importantly looked like it could be something I could do in a reasonable amount of time without fussing with it to death.

The timeline:  In which our intrepid scribe begins to contemplate her fate.

I didn't start the core work on the scroll until late April and had a firm deadline to have it completed two weeks before GNEW.  This would allow for the 7-10 days for the plate to fire and I needed to have it done before I left for Known World Heraldic and Scribal Symposium.  I did not want this kind of project hanging over my head.  Oh, and I was still 1) actively working on live scroll assignments for the kingdom, 2) working as the Backlog Deputy to the EK Signet, and 3) also working as the Quintavia MoAS.  Somewhere in there I also have husband, real life work, and a personal life.  Good times.

To be continues in Part 2....

Apollo's Arrow - Nergis

This is my first Apollo's Arrow (helping with Mikjall's for wording doesn't count) and I was happy to know that the recipient was a friend of Mikjall so I could pick his brain for ideas.

The biggest challanges for this scroll were two fold: 1) Finding a Turkish/Persian source for an archer that specifically did not contain a sagittary (which is the symbol for the grant level archer award) and 2) wording.

The source page was one of a few options from a Mongolian source scouted out by Marieta.  I felt the illuminations were close enough to the feel of the Turkish pictures (and single Mamluk one) I'd scouted to give a correct sense of how to draw the figures.  I found one that I felt would work (a group of archers squaring off against a dragon) and tailored it to a single figure and the dragon.

Now for the truly hard part - words.  I messaged my closest poetry expert, Countess Marguerite (current King's Bard) for ideas for Islamic or Middle Eastern styles of poetry, because like an idiot, I thought this was something I could just whip up and have it done.  

First off all, Marguerite is a treasure trove of poetry research.  She found a few examples of Turkish and Persian poems and how they were constructed.  She gave me all the tools for a great jumping off point and a taste of things that could be a rabbit hole of digging through medieval poetry.  Thankfully, deadlines prevented any rabbit holes. :)

I chose to write a masnavi (also called mathnawi).  This typed of poem was written by Persian, Kurdish, Turkish, and Urdu cultures and has a few poetic variants (usually differing in style and content).  The mathnawi features rhyming couplets (aa/bb/cc pattern) with lines of 10-11 syllables.  Typically these poems can be as long as they need to, but I wanted to keep it short to make sure I had time to work on the illumination.  I ended up choosing to do an Arabic mathnawi (also called muzdawidj) which differs in that instead of couplets it uses a triplet rhyming pattern (aaa/bbb/ccc).  The original page I was looking at didn't make it clear if it also followed the 11 and sometimes 10 syllable line pattern, but after checking in the Marguerite, we agreed it likely would (later, supporting pages I found also agreed with this).  With a bit of peer editing for word choice, I had a poem.  The arms don't follow the poetic pattern and I was fine not messing with it.

Recipient: Nergis bint Mustafa
Award: Apollo's Arrow with Award of Arms
Hand: faux-Arabic script

Words: Arabic mathnawi poem by me
Specs: gouache on pergamentata, Schmincke gold watercolor
Source: (in process of redoing the link)

Words:

"To our great and wise rulers, words of praise came
of a fierce archer by the noble name
of Nergis bint Mustafa. They proclaim:

An Apollo's Arrow they would bestow
unto her. For she did nurture and grow
interest in archery; showing skill with her bow. 

Ionnes, Sultan, Honig Sultana fair
to their beloved East far and wide declare
Nergis would also be given arms to bear: 

Per chevron purpure and vert on a chevron above a

raven migrant to chief argent three bunches of grapes leaved proper."

Side by side comparison of the original and my scroll.  This is pre-clean ups on my scroll as there were a few spots that needed scraping (like where my elbow went into the green paint) and I hadn't erased the lines yet.

Sketch of art and finished calligraphy.  I had to re-tool the first line due to leaving out a word and had to cover for it.  It still managed to follow the poetic rules and it worked.

Close up of finished art and calligraphy before I added the page border.  

Something about the faux-Arabic hand makes it super fun.  I will say I sit there and work through permutations of the letters until I get a good picture of what the word itself should look like.  All in all, I'm proud of how this one turned out considering the art style is not in my comfort zone.

Scroll Wording - Mikjall's Apollo's Arrow

This was done for Yule last year (2016).  The assignment was given Baron Robert (currently Baron of Bergental) and he asked for some wording help from our local household Duchess.  Long story short, Yule creeps up on everyone and I find myself giving Viking poetry/wording a try for reals this time.

I went directly to the Viking Answer Lady for help (http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/meters.shtml) to see if there was anything appropriate I could use or adapt for  an Apollo's Arrow.

I learned two things: kenning are amazing complex/deep and the kenning I found for arrows is bad ass! :)  I am no poet, but I tip my hat to all those SCA Skalds out there currently writing poetry.  I think my meter is a bit off, but it's something to work on.

The wording is adapted from the Karlevi stone in Oland, ca. 1000 C.E (see above link for the original).

Tree of Thrud of hostilities,
the man whom the greatest virtues accompanies
-- most men knew that --
Mikjáll bogmaðr called
a more upright chariot-Vidur
of wondrous-wide ground of Skadi
Brion and Anna ring givers
Bestow Sun's War-needles

Cheat sheet of kenning from the above:

• Tree of Thrud of hostilities - tree of the valkyrie = warrior
• a more upright chariot-Vidur of wondrous-wide ground of Endil = captain/king of a ship/king of sea vessel (changed from Endil  to Skadi in an effort to move the theme from the sea to the forest to change "captain" to be similar to "ranger")
• ring givers = king/queen
• war-needles = arrows,  Sun's War-Needles was used to give the "Apollo's Arrow" name more of a viking feel. 

Seamstress to the Crown - Svea

Recipient: Svea the Short-Sighted
Award: Seamstress to the Crown
Hand: humanist bookhand
Specs: guache on pergamentata
Source: http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=26600

My scroll with a print out of the original for comparison.  Final scroll was 5"x7".

Close up of the finished piece.

I felt like this piece has a lot of things going right for it.  The hand was light and airy enough, most of the capital letters looked correct (including most of the S capitals).  The scaling I think went fine except for the illuminated capital F which is a tad too small.  Measuring out the F to the predetermined block size went better than expected and all the guoache and shmincke gold cooperated.

Scroll text was fleshed out for reading in court:

"While the skill of our artisans is hailed through the Known World, it is also their generosity that makes them and by extension, the East truly great. For her creation of largesse for our kingdom do We, Brion the King and Anna the Queen name Svea the Short-Sighted as a Seamstress to the Crown. Done on this 25th day in March A.S. 51 at the Thawing of the Mud."

Vigil Book - Kennimathor

I was asked by the talented crew putting together the vigil book for Kennimathor Geirrson to help with the illuminations.  Ken (like Matthias) is of the knightly lineage of Earl Seannan an Chasur so this post has a few familiar heraldic beasties.

Edward and Colin (the knights of Matthias and Ken respectively) had the same team create their vigil books, so both books followed the same format: (1) what I call the "preamble" praising the one called to vigil, (2) the recipient's heraldic charge with a shield, chain, helm, and mantle, (3) the knightly lineage, (4) family/household heraldry.  I tried to keep that the same for Matthias and Kennimathor as well.

I lovingly refer to this as the "project of the secret court name person, by the people with secret court names".  Thyra gets a pass on that since her name can be spelled with a "thorn" instead of a "th".

Vigil Book for Njal "Kennimathor Geirrson" Virtanen

Leather journal by Johannes Mikkinen (called Jenson)

Calligraphy by Thyra Eiriksdottir

Illumination by me - AEsa feilinn Jossursdottir (called Feilinn)

Gouache and ink on hot press paper.

Close up of the front cover of the book by Jenson.

Thyra's calligraphy and text based off Njal's Saga.

Heraldry of Njal Virtanen, called Kennimathor.

I'm very proud of the heraldry for this page for a few reasons.  When I was originally looking at the exemplars from Colin's book and period sources, having the acanthus leaves and helm on a shield for a viking persona...just didn't fit right.  Thyra suggested using the Sutton Hoo helmet for the helm and my husband, Sergei, suggested Odin's ravens as supporters instead of the leaves.   I'll nit-pick about the ravens not quiiiite being even, but considering I was now drawing into the bound book instead of the unbound pages I'm not going to complain too much.  The aesthetics were right on the mark and considering a new helm in the style of the Sutton Hoo helm was part of Ken's vigil regalia made me flail like a fan-girl.

Bonus - heraldry with straight lines!  *scribal swoon of joy*

Knightly lineage.

Gryff's stags continue to haunt me as the most difficult of the lineage shields.  The stag on the left says "Look at me, for I am refined and elegant!!!"  The stag on the right (much like the right stag in Matthias' book) says "Derp" to me. *sigh*

My favorite of the bunch continues to be Gregor's lion.  Despite all the fussy elements (claws and fluff), my brain has an easier time making it look correct for some reason.  Pigs are hard to draw (Colin), but then again so are greyhounds with a border of fleur de lys (Edward from Matthias' book).  Both of these venerable gentleman get the squinty-eye of hard to draw heraldry honorable mention.

Heraldry for the Household of Lochleven.

I had a great time with this book and both Thyra and Jenson were a joy to collaborate with.  Congrats, Ken!

Queen for a Month - Feilinn's viking dress

After the Edward III and Thyra II World Tour #2, the sewing ladies of the Worshipful Company decided that each person was going to get a new fancy outfit in as if they were "Queen for a Month".  Thyra was my project manager and Marieta was my concept designer for this one.

What did I want?  Cute viking...and a wolf...also blue...and something that fit.

What this meant was we finally delved into my stash of fabric and made a full viking under dress and apron.  The main component of the apron was something termed "Fantasy Viking" in the SCA...I wanted a wolf design right on the apron.  I had found a design I liked on Pintrest from a million years ago (in which I also found examples of Thyra and Aikaterine in lovely viking dresses when they were queens).

This is where I confess this is my third/fourth embroidery project and biggest applique of the bunch.  I was taught how to do a split stitch specifically for this project.  I did all the hand embroidery for this with the exception of the sun detail on the wolf's collar (done by Thyra) and the eye detail (done by Marieta).  The wolf is 30% merino wool felt, layered on itself, and the apron is either a very light weight wool or very wool-like linen.  The design is based off a Fenris wolf design from the depths of Pintrest, edited to remove the rope fetters/shackles on the paws.  I kept the collar and leash to add color and movement.  The thin bits of felt were tacked down with fusing and pinned in place while I started the stitching process.  Dot details are (terrible) french knots.

Queen for a Month: Wolf Applique
Wool felt stitched with wool thread.

Yard stick shown for scale.

Close up of the stitching and detail work.  I have been told I have the tiniest stitches.  My favorite is the gold eye bead on the wolf.

QoC - Cellach Dhonn

Recipient: Cellach Dhonn inghean Mhic an Mhadaidh
Assignment: Queen's Order of Courtesy
French translation: Kirsa Oyutai
Hand: carolingian miniscule
Specs: gouache on pergamenata, 23k gold gilding
Source: Book of Kells, Gospel of St. Matthew

Finished scroll

Close up of the capital "N"

Original from Book of Kells coloring book.

This was my second full attempt at gilding and on a much larger scale.  The original for this was actually from a Book of Kells coloring book.  I tried to cross reference the colors associated with it to the original manuscript page which I found...and then lost the link to.  My internet-search-fu has since failed me at fining the link to the original.  The knot work on for the birds of the top was simplified to only be one large thread and one accent thread.  Originally I had thought to keep it simple and have the interior of the N's legs one solid color.  After doing the gilding and painting of the birds, I decided just having the flower wheels on the interior was going to be too plain.  The beast-knots in the interior were hand sketched/simplified from the originals and all the detailing of the squares and flowers where free-handed while painting.

Overall, I'm happy with the piece.  I think there are some things I could have done better for scaling of the capital to the body.  Painting was actually easy and the consistency was spot on.  The gilding I'd like to practice more because of issues I had with making the miniatum flow nicely (so there are ripples in the gold that to me are noticable).

Words were by me and read as follows:

"We speak the languages of man, but also many others such as the language of blades or of arts or of service. These are languages spoken through deeds, boldly on event fields or quietly at home. There is one special language in which Cellach Dhonn inghean Mhic an Mhadaidh is well versed. It is the language spoken when addressing a high noble lord or the youngest fussing babe. Its message is spread by helping hands, a mischievous grin, and sometimes even by the gift of fudge so plentiful not even the fearsome Eastern army could consume it all in one sitting. This is the language spoken by the heart of the kingdom; the language of courtesy. It is with great joy that We Anna, induct Cellach Dhonn into Our Queen's Order of Courtesy. Done at Our 12th Night Celebration."

Burdened Tyger - Aethelhawk

Originally scheduled to go out at K&Q Equestrian Champs.  It did not go out at that time, hence the delay in posting this.

The recommendation was particularly inspiring and led to easily writing up the scroll text for this assignment.  Thanks, Lady Fortune!

The award was for a Burdened Tyger for their Majesties' Coronation which was a period Anglo-Saxon affair in terms of food (and holy cow was it delicious!!).  Gunðormr was gracious enough to find a very interesting source...but it was mostly pen and ink drawings.  Something I've never done on a scroll before.  I was gently encouraged by my friendly neighborhood Duchess to just do it since it was technically one step less than a regular illumination.  With arguments like that....

As I mentioned above all art was done using a crow quill which I've had varying success with in past projects.

First use - Too blobby and ink all over the place.  Gross.  Repaint the illumination so you can't tell and use a micron pen.  Scroll goes out and I'm mildly frustrated.

Second use - Blobby and still looks terrible.  Use a micron pen. Scroll goes out and I'm convinced crow quills are the devil.

Third use - Using it to put the "caps" on calligraphed letters.  Not terrible but I suffer from massive shakey-hand.  Final verdict is this is "okay".

Or sometimes I call them calligraphy hats. 

With that rousing bit of confidence....this is the original I chose to base this off of.  The goal was to keep the servant and cut down the high table to just the king and the queen.

Some pen work for a beard and a bit of detail work and the servant suddenly becomes a Aethelhawk.   I changed the facing for the man and added a bit of Kenric'ing to make it look right.  The Avelina figure needed some awesome hair (which I love on the figure and on the real person too).   Soooooo.....getting the draping right was the hardest part of this one.

Sketch work and hand smudges are all done

But once that was done, I was home free to do the calligraphy.  I added the Burdened Tyger  symbol underneath the vase to give it a little more sense of balance.

Recipient: Aethelhafoc Keyfinder (known to most as Aethelhawk)
Assignment: Burdened Tyger
Hand: carolingian miniscule
Specs: Pelikan ink on pergamenata
Source: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_24199_f016v

Finished scroll with a little bit of color.

The best part of this scroll for me was doing the wording. The award write up was immensely helpful in providing inspiration for this.

"Fortune favors fair Quintavia, made manifest by the miraculous feats of culinary skill by saintly Aethelhafoc Keyfinder who fed hundreds of pilgrims gathered at the coronation feast.  So, impressed by his work, King Kenric and Queen Avelina return to the Shire, and induct Athelhafoc into the Order of the Burdened Tyger."

Silver Wheel - Sile

Scroll assignment:Order of the Silver Wheel
Recipient: Sile inghean Mhic Charthaigh
Calligraphy by Thyra Eiriksdottir
Specs: Gouache on pergamenata

I used the Schmincke silver for the capital and wheel for this and it came out quite nice. Below is a side by side comparison with the original along with some progress pictures.

Pelican Regalia - Marguerite

This is a Pelican Veil for Countess Marguerite. 

It was decided to do something for her Indian persona (Megha) and allows her to have something light wight, wearable indoors, and can be taken to Pennsic.  The pelican design is from a period appropriate source found by one of the greater members of the Indian persona community  in the SCA and done as wood block prints. 

The blocks were carved by Sir Zhigmun Czypsser.  The veil was hemmed and stamped by various ladies of the Worshipful Company of Their Majesties' Underwear (many of whom are part of Marguerite's household and sister household).

Green silk with white acrylic paint mixed with fabric medium.

Center of the veil.

Thyra in progress of stamping!

Adding a pelican border to the hemmed sides.

Pelican placement was planned ahead of time

Once one side was done, the other side was done to mirror it.